2. Materials and methods
2.1. Raw material and sample preparation
All measurements were made on Bolca (Bolu, Turkey) brand's turkey breast meat which was stored at 4 °C until usage. The meat samples were prepared for salting process after removing the fatty parts and cutting parallel to fiber direction. The thickness of the samples were determined as 10 mm for only salted products (S) and 20 mm for salted and pressed products (SP) by an electronic digital caliper (Fred Fowler Co., Newton, MA) because the samples become thinner after pressing.
Samples were placed between 10 mm thickness of coarse salt layer and salted to different salt levels (4–5% and 7–8% on dry base) with dry salting. After salting process, the samples were washed and dried on paper towels to eliminate excess salt. Samples were pressed with weight of 10 kg which is put onto each sample with dimensions of about 60 × 90 × 20 mm (approximately 80 g) for 16 h. Meat samples release some water with pressing. Moisture content of products was measured according to method of Wiklund, Kemp, Li, and Wu (2010) and salt content of samples was determined by Mohr's method (Kirk & Sawyer, 1991). Table 1 shows the name of the samples with their salt and moisture contents.