Optimisation of gelatine extraction from hoki (Macruronus novaezelandiae) skins and measurement of gel strength and SDS–PAGE

The extraction of hoki (Macruronus novaezelandiae) gelatine was optimised using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and gel strength and SDS–PAGE were evaluated. The optimum conditions for extraction were 0.75 M NaCl for 9 min of pre-treatment time and hot water extraction at 49.3 °C for 60 min. Results showed that the predicted yield by RSM (17.4%) closely matched the experimental yield of 17.6%. SDS–PAGE showed that hoki gelatine contained higher molecular weight subunits (∼191 kDa) but lower gel strength (197 ± 5 g) than those from porcine (307 ± 8.4 g) or bovine (273 ± 16.1 g) gelatine determined at 7 °C. However, hoki gelatine gel strength was significantly higher than those from other cold-water fish species reported in literature, which could account for the slight differences in methodologies reported.