Physicochemical and microbiological changes during the refrigerated storage of lamb loins sous-vide cooked at different combinations of time and temperature.

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the influence of cooking temperature (either 60 ℃ or 80 ℃) and time (6 h or 24 h) on the physicochemical (weight loss, moisture content, instrumental color, instrumental texture, lipid and protein oxidation) and microbiological changes underwent by sous-vide cooked lamb loins during refrigerated storage for 30 days. There was a slight trend to decreasing weight losses in some of the cooking treatments, but only in samples cooked at 60 ℃ for 6 h it was paralleled with an increase in moisture content. The only noteworthy oxidative change was a marked decrease in conjugated dienes after two weeks of storage in samples cooked at 80 ℃ for 24 h. Neither instrumental texture nor color showed noticeable variations during the storage. Microbial population remained quite low during the whole refrigerated storage. Overall, most of the studied parameters showed only scarce changes throughout 30 days of refrigerated storage that most likely would not influence the quality of sous-vide cooked loin lambs.