PHYSICOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF PORK MEAT D URING SALTING PROCESS

The salt contents of pork meat (pork spare ribs) increased from 0.5% o f raw meat to 3.1% after one day's salting process at 4% (w/w) NaCl ad dition, and then the contents was almost constant. By DSC analysis, it became clear that denaturation of the meat mainly occured on myosin b y salting. As the denaturation proceeds, the enthalpy change, Delta H, (cal/g of meat) of 1.212 rapidly decreased to 0.830 for 3 day's salti ng and then gradually decreased to 0.736 for 27 day's salting. Elastic modulus, viscosity and rupture strength of the meat increased during salting as a whole. The change of dynamic rigidity of the pork meat pa stes by heating exhibited the tendency to decrease at the temperature range from 52 degrees C to 58 degrees C after 6 day's salting. The res ult was considered to come from the structure change of the sample due to thermal denaturation of myosin.