PHYSICOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF SALMON DURI NG SALTING PROCESS

The salt contents of salmon meat linearly increased from 0.8% raw meat to 4.4% after 14-day's salting process at 15 wt% NaCl addition. From the DSC analysis, it became clear that the denaturation of the meat ma inly occurred on myosin by salting. As the denaturation proceeds, the enthalpy change, DELTAH (mcal/mg of meat) of 0.999 rapidly decreased t o 0.646 for 1-day salting and then gradually decreased to 0.567 for a 14-day salting. Elastic modulus (E), viscosity, and rupture strength o f meat decreased by 1-day salting, but they increased during salting. The temperature dependence of dynamic rigidity (G'), of the salmon mea t pastes, suggests that the gelation occurred at ca. 58-degrees-C. The phenomena of disintegration (''himodori'') were observed on the sampl es excepts those of 1st day and after 10 days. The reason that has bee n considered is said to be due to the network structure of salt solubl e proteins that were not yet formed in the 1st day's sample, and that polymerization of heavy chains of myosin proceeded in the samples afte r 10 days.