Influence of direct and delayed chilling of excised female buffalo muscles on their textural quality

The excised muscles from the left half of 6 carcasses of old female buffaloes (4–5 years of age) were held, soon after slaughter, at the temperature of 2–3°C for 24 h (direct chilling) and those from the right half at ambient temperature (26±2°C) up to 6 h postmortem followed by chilling at 2–3°C for 18 h (delayed chilling) in order to study the improvement in the texture quality of muscles. During the delayed chilling, the muscle pH decreased to 6.0 (from the initial value of 6.5) in 3 h whereas it took 5–6 h in direct chilling. Reduction in Instron firmness values was 10.3–33.6% and that in cohesiveness values was 13.2–22.2% in delayed chilled muscles compared to direct chilled ones when cooked muscles were sheared along or across the muscle fibres. These observations were statistically significant (P⩽ 0.001) indicating a definite improvement in the texture quality of muscles subjected to delayed chilling. However, no definite trend was observed in the values of elasticity, cooking loss and water holding capacity of muscles due to direct or delayed chilling.