Optimization of meat tumbling

During the manufacturing of some meat products such as cooked ham, tumbling is a key step; massaging of meat pieces with brine improves the penetration of ingredients, cooking yield and the organoleptic qualities of the final product.

We built a laboratory device that simulates the fall of meat pieces in industrial tumblers (fall height from 0.2 to 1 m) via a series of short compressions (< 0.2 s) and the subsequent deformations. The mechanical energy dissipated due to the viscous property of meat tissue is calculated from the forcedeformation diagram measured during each deformation. We have shown that the diffusivity of salt in the muscle tissue is strongly increased by this mechanical action and that this action in itself leads to protein solubilization and denaturation, two biochemical properties that are known to impact cooking yield and cooked product texture.

By controlling the variables that determine the deformation of meat pieces (tumbling time, tumbler diameter, number and frequency of falls, size of pieces), this simulator makes it possible to streamline the definition of optimal operating conditions according to formulation, product size and tumbler dimensions.