EFFECTS OF ELECTRICAL STIMULATION AND POST-CHILL DEBONING TIME ON TEXTURE AND COOK LOSS OF BROILER BREASTS PROCESSED UNDER COMMERCIAL CONDITIONS

Authors: Lyon, Clyde; Dickens, James; Lyon, Brenda

Submitted to: Journal of Applied Poultry Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/28/2002
Publication Date: 5/1/2002
Citation: Lyon, C.E., Dickens, J.A., Lyon, B.G. 2002. Effects of electrical stimulation and post-chill deboning time on texture and cook loss of broiler breasts processed under commercial conditions. Journal of Applied Poultry Research. 11:217-222.

Interpretive Summary: A typical broiler processing operation can handle thousands of birds each day. A large percentage of the meat from these plants is marketed as skinless-boneless breast meat. Since this is a premium product for consumers, any problems such as toughness can result in a loss of repeat purchases. Under traditional processing procedures, the breast muscles need to stay attached to the skeletal frame (stretched) from 4 to 12 hours after processing to avoid contraction which leads to tough meat. Holding thousands of carcasses for hours is costly in labor, equipment, and energy. In this study, we cooperated with a commercial processor to try and eliminate this holding time. Carcasses were subjected to pulsed electric current during processing to speed up biochemical activity by a series of muscular contraction-relaxation cycles that decrease the breast muscles ability to enter into irreversible contraction. If this energy level is reduced prior to breast muscle removal, the cooked meat should be tender. The treated breasts were compared to samples that were not subjected to pulsed stimulation, but were held longer than the treated samples prior to breast muscle removal. The stimulation treatment resulted in cooked meat that was not different from the meat that was held for the longer time. The processor saved the expense of holding the carcasses without sacrificing any quality in the cooked meat and is using the stimulation procedure in two plants.

Technical Abstract: Aging broiler front-halves 4 to 12 hours prior to breast muscle removal is costly due to yield loss, required refrigerated space, labor, and equipment, yet many buyers require a specific post-chill aging time to ensure optimum tenderness in cooked breast meat. Many treatments have been attempted to shorten or eliminate this aging time while at the same time not adversely affecting end-product tenderness. In this study, conducted under commercial conditions, broilers were subjected to one of two treatments: 1) pulsed electric stimulation during bleeding followed by breast deboning immediately after a 1.5 h chill, 2) no pulsed electric stimulation and 1.5 h chilling followed by an additional 2 h aging before breast deboning. Samples were collected for each treatment on 3 consecutive days. Breasts were evaluated for cook loss and instrumental texture (shear values). Day of processing had a significant effect on raw and cooked weights, cook losses and shear values. The larger breast muscles from Day 1 were responsible for the differences. Differences due to the electrical treatment (days combined) were significant only for cook loss, with breasts from stimulated carcasses exhibiting 22.77% compared to 21.97% for breasts from the non-stimulated carcasses. Results indicate that the use of pulsed electric stimulation during bleeding in combination with breast deboning after 1.5 h chilling is equal to no stimulation, 1.5 h chilling and 2 hours post-chill aging prior to breast deboning.