Quality Evaluation of Pork with Various Freezing and Thawing Methods

In this study, the physicochemical and sensory quality characteristics due to the influence of various thawing methods onelectro-magnetic and air blast frozen pork were examined. The packaged pork samples, which were frozen by air blast freez-ing at -45oC or electro-magnetic freezing at -55oC, were thawed using 4 different methods: refrigeration (4±1oC), room tem-perature (RT, 25oC), cold water (15oC), and microwave (2450 MHz). Analyses were carried out to determine the drip andcooking loss, water holding capacity (WHC), moisture content and sensory evaluation. Frozen pork thawed in a microwaveindicated relatively less thawing loss (0.63-1.24%) than the other thawing methods (0.68-1.38%). The cooking loss afterelectro-magnetic freezing indicated 37.4% by microwave thawing, compared with 32.9% by refrigeration, 36.5% by RT,and 37.2% by cold water in ham. The thawing of samples frozen by electro-magnetic freezing showed no significant differ-ences between the methods used, while the moisture content was higher in belly thawed by microwave (62.0%) after elec-tro-magnetic freezing than refrigeration (54.8%), RT (61.3%), and cold water (61.1%). The highest overall acceptabilitywas shown for microwave thawing after electro-magnetic freezing but there were no significant differences compared tothat of the other samples.