Abstract
Catfish fillet texture is important to consumers, especially if the texture is not what the consumer expects. Therefore, it is important to be able to assure that texture quality is consistent. Texture is a humanly perceived sensory trait and can be costly to processors when texture quality is substandard. Instrumental methods of monitoring texture are much less costly over time than maintaining a sensory quality panel. The purpose of this research was to develop methods for monitoring texture quality using reliable instrumental methods. A descriptive sensory texture panel evaluated fresh‐frozen and individually quick frozen (IQF) catfish fillets and was compared to the instrumental analysis of the same cooked fish, using texture profile analysis (TPA). The TPA evaluation was more successful for identifying differences between IQF and fresh‐frozen catfish, with the most significance (p < 0.02) seen for the attributes springiness, resilience, chewiness‐1, hardness‐1, and residual parameters of springiness, chewiness‐1, chewiness‐1b, and hardness‐1b. For sensory evaluation, only moisture release and moisture retention were this significant. Overall, IQF fillets were more moist and cohesive, with fresh‐frozen fillets greater in all other parameters. Predictive equations were developed for sensory texture attributes from various TPA attributes calculated from the compression–force curves generated from two compressions of a ball probe. In the fresh‐frozen catfish, sensory attributes firmness, flaky, moisture retention, and residual cohesiveness of mass had correlation coefficients (R) of 0.50 or greater. For the IQF catfish, all sensory attributes had an R of less than 0.4. The firmness sensory attribute had TPA predictor variables in both fresh‐frozen and IQF that consisted mainly of hardness, chewiness, or thickness‐related attributes. Based on results, instrumental texture of catfish should be measured before further processing, such as IQF.
Highlights
Since the peak of the U.S catfish industry in 2003, the amount of catfish sold to processors has decreased by more than half, from 662 million pounds to 301 million pounds in 2014 (Hanson & Sites, 2015), while offshore imports of tilapia and Pangasius have increased dramatically
Catfish processed with the individually quick frozen (IQF) processing method resulted in different intensities of sensory texture attributes to that found for fresh-frozen catfish
The texture profile analysis (TPA) evaluation of catfish was more successful than descriptive sensory texture analysis for identifying differences between IQF and fresh-frozen catfish
Summary
Since the peak of the U.S catfish industry in 2003, the amount of catfish sold to processors has decreased by more than half, from 662 million pounds to 301 million pounds in 2014 (Hanson & Sites, 2015), while offshore imports of tilapia and Pangasius have increased dramatically. There are a number of reasons for the decline of the U.S catfish industry including price and availability. This has increased the importance of producing a product with consistently high quality in an efficient manner. One of the major quality attributes of fish products is the texture of the cooked products. Texture is considered to be one of the most important quality attributes of fish and meat. It contributes to consumer acceptance and marketability of the final product (Cheret, Delbarre- Ladrat, Lamballerie-Anton, & Verrez-Bagnis, 2007). The general area of fish texture has been reviewed by several reports (Cheng, Sun, Han, & Zeng, 2014; Coppes, Pavlisko, & De Vecchi, 2002; Hyldig & Nielsen, 2001; Sigurgisladottir, Tornissen, Lie, Thomassen, & Hfsteinsson, 1997)
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