In our study the blast-chilled carcasses had a statistically significantly worse meat tenderness and flavor in the sensory assessment. This observation is in line with the findings of Jones et al. (1993) who report
that carcass chilling may cause muscle shrinkage if the temperature falls
below 10 °C at a pH above 6. Also Jones et al. (1993) and Wal van der
et al. (1995) showed that blast chilling results in the LL muscle having
shorter sarcomeric segments and higher Warner-Bratzler shear force
compared to conventional chilling, but this is not confirmed by
McFarlane and Unruh (1996) or Springer et al. (2003). Moreover, in
the study by Springer et al. (2003), accelerated chilling improved several important quality attributes and did not negatively affect sensory
panel scores. In most categories of traits, an accelerated chilling time
of 90 min improved scores compared to conventionally chilled carcasses, whereas 120 min and 150 min chilling did not further improve
scores. Similarly, Juárez et al. (2009) observed that the choice of chilling
method was not significant for sensory characteristics and shear force.