Vacuum Mixing Influence on Characteristics of Sectioned and Formed Beef Steak

Choice, Yield Grade 3 chucks were purchased vacuum packaged within 48 hr of slaughter. They were randomly allocated to treatments of vacuum or no vacuum mixing and 6 or 12 min mixing periods. The meat was formulated into sectioned and formed steaks. A trained sensory panel evaluated all samples and color scores were assigned to each steak. Instron adhesion measured binding of meat pieces, Kramer shear indicated tenderness, mg exudate/cm2 measured binding proteins. Reflectance spectrophotometry measured oxymyoglobin and metmyoglobin. Electrophoresis was used to separate and quantitate individual myofibrillar proteins. Sensory analyses indicated vacuum processed steaks had superior bind (P < 0.01) while juiciness, flavor and tenderness remained unchanged. Instron analyses indicated no difference in tenderness or bind strength due to vacuum. Subjective color analyses indicated less desirable color for vacuum mixing (P < 0.05) and the amount of oxymyoglobin and metmyoglobin were not changed due to treatment. There was less exudate at the bond site for vacuum mixing (P < 0.01). Sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar proteins were similar over vacuum treatment.