tent and shear force of cooked meat in the recent
study comparing the meat quality of bulls in ffteen
European cattle breeds (Christensen et al., 2011).
Although total collagen content increased with
slaughter age, meat from older animals was assessed
by the sensory panel as more tender. Also, shear
force values were numerically lower for these animals, though the differences were not statistically
different. In agreement with our results, Jeremiah
et al. (2003) concluded that insoluble collagen (not
measured in our study) was more related to sensory
tenderness traits than either total or soluble collagen. Similarly, collagen characteristics were shown
to be a poor indicator of bulls’ meat toughness and
the role of differences in proteolytic enzyme activity and fibre type characteristics was suggested in
the study by Christensen et al. (2011). Lower shear
force measurements could also be associated with
a lesser vulnerability of MLL to cold shortening in
heavier and fatter animals (Sañudo et al., 2004).
Ageing time is one of the most important factors
influencing most of the sensory properties, especially tenderness (Campo et al., 1999). In our study,
sensory quality of meat aged for either 4 or 11 days
was compared. A 7 days difference at this stage of
the ageing process appears to be too short to influence signifcantly the scores for odour and flavour
intensity, juiciness and overall acceptance, as the
observed differences were rather small and inconsistent. Tenderness values were numerically higher
as the ageing time increased in all groups except for,
surprisingly, older bulls. At similar ageing times, our
results were broadly in agreement with Monsón et al.
(2005) who investigated the effect of ageing on meat
from different cattle breeds. Tese authors stated
that a major increase of tenderness was observed
between the 1st and the 14th day of ageing.