The moisture content and freezing point of fresh tuna
meat were 72.32% and )1.4 C, respectively. A typical
cooling curve is shown in Fig. 4. Cooling below the
initial freezing point of a sample without formation of
ice is defined as supercooling. Following initial supercooling,
the critical mass of nuclei is reached with the
system nucleating at point, a. At this stage, the sample
releases its latent heat of fusion faster than the amount
of heat removed from the system causing an instantaneous
increase in temperature to the equilibrium freezing
point, b. The extent of supercooling is low in tuna
compared to dates (Kasapis et al., 2000a). The cooling
rate was varied from 0.5 to 4 C/min using different
extent of insulation. In case of cooling rate above 3 C/
min the freezing plateau was very short and it was difficult
to identify the freezing point accurately. Moreover
the freezing point was significantly lower compared to
the cooling rates at or below 1.5 C/min. The measured
freezing points at 1.5 C/min and lower cooling rate
were not significantly different (p > 0:05), thus all experiments
were conducted at the cooling rate at or below
1.5 C/min. Freezing points data of tuna meat as a
function of solids content are given in Table 1. Rahman
et al.s (2002) method was used to estimate the end point
of freezing (T 0
m) from cooling curve. In this method,
slope of cooling curve is determined and plotted as a
function of time to identify the end point of freezing.
Initially, the slope is decreased and then reached a
minimum value, which is identified as the nucleation of
ice. The end point of freezing is identified when the slope
starts to decrease from its highest value or plateau. A
typical plot of the slope of the cooling curve for tuna
meat is shown in Fig. 5. The point c was identified as the
end point of freezing. The value of T 0
m was found
)13.3 C.