Experimental substantiation of the storage temperature regime ensuring the stable supercooled state of meat and meat products

Abstract

One of the ways to ensure safety, preserve quality and increase the shelf life of meat with minimum technological processing of raw materials is the use of supercooling and storage technologies at sub-cryoscopic temperatures. Supercooling is a process of refrigeration processing, which provides the meat temperature decrease (by 1-2°C) below the cryoscopic temperature without phase conversion of water into ice (supercooling) or with partial ice formation (freezing). Subcooling ensures better quality preservation and longer shelf life of raw meat and finished meat products compared to cooling. Phase transformation of water into ice during freezing and freezing of food products causes irreversible changes in them as a result of crystal formation in muscle fibers and denaturation of sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar proteins. The article presents the results of research to justify the temperature regime of storage, which provides a stable hypothermal state of meat and meat products. It is shown that the limit temperature of subcooling is a fixed individual characteristic of the beginning of ice formation in meat and certain types of meat products and can be used as an indicator to justify the temperature of the cooling medium, providing the stability of products in the subcooled state.