Effect of Post-Mortem Electrical Stimulation on Color, Texture, pH, and Cooking Losses of Hot and Cold Deboned Chicken Broiler Breast Meat

Abstract

Chicken broilers were electrically stunned prior to bleeding and slaughter in the processing plant at the Spelderholt Center. A nonstimulated (NS) control was used. Post-mortem intermittent electrical stimulation (ES) for 60 s was applied using 100 V immediately after bleeding. Birds were deboned from one breast half at various times (0 to 240 min) after evisceration. The remaining half was left attached to the carcass.Breast muscle pH was significantly lowered by ES compared with pH of control birds. There was an electrical stimulation × time interaction when measuring Warner Bratzler maximum shear, slope, and work values. Electrical stimulation at 0 or 15 min actually toughened the breast muscle, but ES significantly tenderized breast muscle deboned at 120 and 240 min, compared with the control. Breast muscles from ES carcasses were significantly darker in color, with lower lightness (L*) values when hot deboned at 60 min or earlier. Post-mortem ES significantly increased redness (a*) values at all deboning times except 30 min. Cooking losses and expressible moisture were significantly increased by ES. Hot deboning significantly decreased sarcomere length, but ES had no significant effect on sarcomere length.