Factors Affecting Tensile and Warner‐bratzler Shear Values of Raw and Cooked Meat

The influence of slit width on the force deformation curves obtained for raw and cooked meat of different myofibrillar contraction states was investigated with a modified version of the Warner‐Bratzler (WB) shear device. Decreasing the clearance or compressing the sample directly onto a base plate (i.e. no slit) had little effect on the initial yield force values. Meat samples retained most of their original tensile strength after compression to initial yield on the shear device. Even cold‐shortened cooked samples compressed to peak force values retained over 30% of their original tensile strength. Peak tensile and peak WB shear force measurements were highly correlated: R2= 0.71, 0.94 and 0.88 for raw, stretched/cooked and contracted/cooked samples, respectively. The slopes (WB on tensile) of the regression lines were increased by both cooking and by contraction to below rest length. These results indicate that components other than tensile in the WB shear force measurements were increased by cooking and by myofibrillar contraction.