Abstract
Large yellow croaker (Pseudosciaena crocea) is the main coastal economic fish in China. After harvesting, the fish is rarely traded as the fresh product, but usually held in cold storage. Therefore, it is important to understand the quality changes occurring during preservation. In this study, freshly collected fishes were frozen by cryogenic (cabinet liquid nitrogen freezer at -40, -60 and -80 °C) and forced convection (ultra-low temperature freezer at -40 °C) freezing and stored at -18 °C for 6 months. Drip loss, relative moisture loss (RML), water holding capacity (WHC), color and texture of frozen fish were evaluated. The results showed that forced convection freezing had significantly higher drip loss and RML values compared to cryogenic freezing. WHC decreased dramatically irrespective of freezing methods employed. Cryogenic freezing at -60 and -80 °C had the highest yellowness values during storage; but the highest springiness, gumminess and shear force values were obtained only at -60 °C. We conclude that cryogenic freezing at -60 °C is appropriate for long-term storage of large yellow croaker.
Highlights
Large yellow croaker (Pseudosciaena crocea) is a delicious and tender-flesh quality marine fish
Previous studies have demonstrated that freezing rate affects the size, distribution and location of ice crystals formed in frozen samples, leading to the muscle tissues damage resulting in weight loss and quality changes of frozen food products (Añón & Calvelo, 1980; Kono et al, 2017; Wagner & Anon, 1985)
Our freezing results indicate that the freezing time and rate of cryogenic freezing at -40, -60, and -80 °C were 20, 15, 10 min and 120, 240, 480 °C h-1, respectively; the Forced convection freezing (FCF) had the freezing time and rate of 360 min and 6.67 °C h-1
Summary
Large yellow croaker (Pseudosciaena crocea) is a delicious and tender-flesh quality marine fish. Previous studies have demonstrated that freezing rate affects the size, distribution and location of ice crystals formed in frozen samples, leading to the muscle tissues damage resulting in weight loss and quality changes of frozen food products (Añón & Calvelo, 1980; Kono et al, 2017; Wagner & Anon, 1985). The usefulness of cryogenic freezing is still debated because the stored fish and/or seafood products suffered significant quality loss in some studies (Chen & Pan, 1997; Jiang et al, 2018; Pan & Yeh, 1993). To recommend the appropriate method for storage, we compared these two freezing techniques, stored fishes for 6 months and studied the freezing loss, drip loss, relative moisture loss, water holding capacity, color and texture of large yellow croaker
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