Hot deboning beef with and without electrical stimulation

Two hot deboning procedures for producing vacuum packed primal beef joints were compared with conventional side chilling followed by cold deboning. Cold shortening toughness was avoided in the hot procedures either by a delay before chilling or by electrical stimulation of the carcass. Overall evaporative losses were 0·6% with hot deboning and 1·9% with cold deboning. Hot deboning reduced drip loss but the effect was smaller after electrical stimulation. The colour of large muscles which cool unevenly on the side was more uniform after hot deboning, but again the improvement was smaller after electrical stimulation. There was no difference in bacterial contamination or growth on hot and cold deboned meat, and instrumental and sensory assessments confirmed that eating quality was similar for all three treatments.