2.4.4. Cooking losses and meat texture
Cooking losses and meat texture were determined as described in
Pascual and Pla (2007) and Pascual and Pla (2008), respectively. The
left longissimus muscle of each animal was weighted (F), vacuum
packed in plastic bags and frozen at−20 °C.When required, longissimus
muscleswere thawed at 4 °C for 24 h and cooked vacuumpacked in the
plastic bags at 80 °C for 1 h by immersion in a water bath. After cooling
for 10min by immersion inwater, sampleswere removed fromthe bags
and weighed (C). Cooking losses were calculated as (F-C) × 100/F. Two
to three rectangles of 2 × 1 × 1 cm of cross section were obtained and
cut using a Warner–Bratzler shear blade with a triangular slot cutting
edge, in a texture analyzer mod. TA XT Plus (Stable Micro Systems,
UK). The parameters measured were shear force (kg/cm2); shear firmness,
obtained as the slope of the line drawn between the origin of the
curve and the maximum shear force (kg/s cm2); and area (kg s/cm2)
under the curve or total work performed to cut the sample.