The Effects of Long Term Cooking on Shear Force‐deformation Curves

The influence of muscle contraction, pressure‐heat, and cooking conditions on some parameters of the Warner Bratzler shear force curves were studied. Stretched meat samples, restrained from shortening along the muscle fibers during cooking for a short time at 90°C, had larger peak shear force values than samples cooked unrestrained. As cooking times were increased, peak shear force values decreased until after 8‐16 hr the cooked restrained samples had lower values than the unrestrained ones. The initial yield force values obtained for pressure‐heat treated samples were not significantly affected by cooking at 90° for up to 32 hr, although the peak shear force values decreased with cooking time. The experimentally determined shear curves were shown to be approximated by summing the estimated individual contributions of the myofibrillar and the connective tissue components. The results are consistent with the suggestion that the initial yield force values represent mainly the myofibrillar strength and that the difference between the peak force and the initial yield force represents the contribution of the connective tissue.