Effects of mechanical treatments and moisture enhancement on the processing characteristics and tenderness of beef semimembranosus roasts

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The combined effect of blade tenderization (TD, NTD), pre-massaging (0 and 30 min), moisture enhancement and post-injection tumbling (2 h) on the chemical, binding and textural characteristics of pre-cooked roasts made from beef top round was investigated. Properties of the beef roasts were determined by measuring processing (i.e., cooking yield, expressible moisture (EM)) and textural characteristics (Warner–Bratzler shear, Kramer shear (KS), texture profile analysis). Brine injection helped to improve the cook yield and had the largest effect on tenderness of semimembranosus muscles. Post-injection tumbling did not significantly improve yield and textural properties of roasts; however, combined with the tenderization, it had beneficial effects on water holding and moisture retention. Pre-tumbling and blade tenderization treatments prior to injection generally were found to be beneficial for textural characteristics; pre-tumbling also tended to improve cook yield, but did not influence EM. However, no synergistic effect between these two variables was observed. An interaction between injection/tumbling and pre-tumbling was observed for KS. There was a significant improvement of KS values of roasts due to pre-tumbling observed for either non-injected roasts or those injected but without tumbling. However, no additional reduction in shear force was observed with pre-tumbling when roasts were tumbled after injection. This suggests that pre-tumbling may not be necessary to ensure more tender roasts when post-injection tumbling is applied, but would be beneficial for non-injected roasts or when tumbling is not applied after injection.