Relationship between water content, NaCl content, pH and texture parameters in dry-cured muscles

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to describe the effect of NaCl and pH on the relationship between water content and hardness, cohesiveness and springiness in dry-cured muscles. The experiment was undertaken using 18 hams, selected in a commercial slaughterhouse. Half of the hams had a pH < 5.7 and the rest a pH > 6.2, measured on the semimembranosus muscle at 24-h postmortem. The semimembranosus and biceps femoris muscles were cut from hams, cured and individually packaged in bags and were laid in trays in a room at 2 ± 2 °C for 45 days. Thereafter nine samples from each muscle were shaped like a parallelepiped and dried until different levels of drying, ranging from 28.5% to 59.7% water content, were attained. The rest of the muscle was ground and packaged until its subsequent physicochemical analysis. At the end of the drying period, a Texture Profile Analysis was used to determine textural parameters. The results indicated that for a range of X (kg H 2O/kg dry matter) between 0.8 and 1.3 the hardness remains practically unchanged while for X < 0.6 the hardness increases substantially. The samples from hams with low pH SM had greater hardness, cohesiveness and springiness than those from hams with high pH SM. Dry-cured muscles with lower NaCl content showed lower hardness, cohesiveness and springiness, especially in those with pH SM > 6.2. At X values lower than 0.6 the hardness was more influenced by water content than by NaCl content or pH SM.