Although the description of “shear testing” is commonly given to any test that uses a cutting action to apply a stress to a food sample, the true engineering definition of shear, does not employ a blade but refers to a material being stressed from two opposite directions and then shearing within its own structure.
Click here for a video demonstrating a shear test method to measure gherkin crunchiness.
There are many different variations of basic shear testing apparatus: blades in V, notched, rounded or straight edges. The Warner-Bratzler meat shear design is an industry standard configuration for meat tenderness. A wire shear test cell is used for ISO standard testing of butter, but like all accessories, can be correlated to the sensory texture of many product types.