Water distribution in smoked salmon

Low‐field 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) tranverse relaxations were measured on intact and minced muscle from raw and smoked salmon differing in size (small or large) and storage days after smoking (1, 11 and 20 days). Water distribution in the samples was calculated from the NMR signals by the use of multi‐way data analysis. For intact and minced salmon samples, three water ‘pools’ with T2 values of 38, 50 and 182 ms and of 33, 50 and 183 ms, respectively, were identified. For both intact and minced samples, the size of water pool I and II were affected by storage time after smoking, whereas the size of pool III was affected by the size of the fish. Intact fillet samples taken near the skin and near the middle of the fillet differed with respect to shape of the NMR relaxation signal reflecting a non‐uniform distribution of the size of the three water pools in intact fillet.