Comparison of clam-shell cookers and electric broilers and their effects on cooking traits and repeatability of...

Clam-shell (CS) type cookers were investigated as an alternative cookery method for objective tenderness evaluations of beef strip loin steaks. This study was conducted in two phases: Phase I determined the most effective clam-shell cooking temperature setting (Low, Medium or High) and Phase II compared the repeatabilities of cooking traits and Warner-Bratzler shear (WBS) values from steaks cooked on electric broilers (EB) to steaks cooked on CS. Data from Phase I showed that cooking time was reduced (P<0.05) substantially for steaks cooked on CS with the shortest cooking times associated with the highest temperature settings. EB steaks had higher cooking losses compared with CS steaks (P<0.05), while the CS-Low temperature setting yielded the lowest cooking losses. WBS values did not differ except for steaks cooked on the CS-Medium setting, which were lower (P<0.05) than EB and CS-Low cooked steaks. CS-High setting was determined to be the optimum temperature setting for CS cooking because it required the least amount of time to cook and produced WBS values that were not different from steaks cooked on EB. Therefore, repeatability of cooking traits and WBS values of CS-High and EB were investigated in Phase II. Data from Phase II showed similar trends for cooking traits and WBS values between CS and EB cooked steaks as were observed in Phase I. Repeatabilities for WBS values were higher for steaks cooked on CS (R=0.86) compared with EB (R=0.41). The CS method appears to be an acceptable alternative to EB for cooking steaks used in meat tenderness research.