The Distribution of Water in Pork Meat during Wet-curing as Studied by Low-field NMR

Abstract

The objective of the present work was to investigate water distribution in porcine muscle during wet-curing using both the low-field (LF) NMR T₂ components and traditional methods. Longissimus muscles were cut into 1 cm³ and immersed in brine solution (15% NaCl, w/w) at 4°C. The analysis of NMR and AOCO indicated that with increasing curing time there was greater uptake of water by the meat. Population of T₂ suggested that redistribution occurred between the protein-associated water, immobilized water and free water: the immoboilized water increased while the others decreased. Aw and pH decreased during curing while WHC increased at first then kept decreasing after curing for 1h. DSC indicated that actin and myosin in meat were denatured. The conclusion is that with the swelling of meat structure by NaCl, water transferred from brine to meat surface firstly, then continued moving into the muscular tissue and converted to immobilized water mostly.