PREDICTION OF SENSORY CHARACTERISTICS OF BEEF BY NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY

Sensory hardness, tenderness and juiciness of M. Longissimus dorsi mus cles from 10 beef carcasses at three ageing stages were predicted by n ear-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic analysis in the reflection (NIRR) and transmission modes (NIRT) during 14 days ageing at 2-degrees-C. Predi cting the sensory variables hardness and tenderness from NIRR measurem ents using principal component regression (PCR), yielded correlation c oefficients in the range 0.80-0.90. The root mean square errors of pre diction for the predictions of hardness and tenderness were in the ran ge 0.5-0.7, given in sensory assessment units. Juiciness was not well predicted. Prediction of sensory variables from NIRT measurements did not give satisfactory results. Including samples from all carcasses, c ows and young bulls in the models resulted in good predictions from NI RR measurements of frozen and thawed samples. However, the best predic tion results were generally obtained from separate calibrations of the samples from the bulls. The potential of NIR spectroscopy in the pred iction of sensory variables in whole meat needs to be further investig ated on a larger number of samples with different breeds, animals and process treatments included.