High pressure applied to frozen ham at different process stages. 2. Effect on the sensory attributes and on the colour characteristics of dry-cured ham

Abstract

This paper describes the effect of high pressure (400 MPa and 600 MPa) applied to frozen hams at early stages of the dry-cured ham process: green hams (GH) and hams at the end of the resting stage (ERS), on the appearance, some texture and flavour parameters and on the instrumental colour characteristics of dry-cured hams. Pressurized hams showed slightly lower visual colour intensity than the control ones. In general, pressurization did not have a significant effect on the flavour characteristics of the final product. The 600-MPa hams from the ERS process showed significantly lower crumbliness and higher fibrousness scores than the control and the 400-MPa hams. However, none of these differences were enough to affect the overall sensory quality of the hams negatively. Regarding instrumental colour characteristics ( L ∗ a ∗ b ∗), an increase in lightness was observed in the biceps femoris muscle from GH hams pressurized at 400 MPa and 600 MPa but not in the ERS hams.