The interrelationship between sensory tenderness and shear force measured by the G2 Tenderometer and a Lloyd texture analyser fitted with a Warner–Bratzler head

Abstract

A comparison of peak shear force results for a Lloyd texture analyser fitted with a Warner Bratzler type of shearing head and a G2 Tenderometer was undertaken using sheep meat. The G2 is a new version of the Tenderometer that uses an electric linear motor to compress the sample, but still retains the blunt wedge-shaped “tooth”. Analysis of sheep meat samples (n=121) revealed that the average G2 Tenderometer shear force results were approximately 1.2 times those for the Lloyd based on the following model; Lloyd=1.561 Tenderometer0.84. Both instruments explained low amounts of the variation (less than 20%) in the sensory traits tenderness and overall liking. The high values for the sensory traits indicate that a wider range of samples, including samples with lower sensory scores, is required to develop robust threshold estimates so that either instrument could be use as an auditing instrument for the processing industry.