Effect of very fast chilling and aging time on ultra-structure and meat quality characteristics of Chinese Yellow cattle M. Longissimus lumborum

Objectives of the current study were to evaluate meat ultra-structure and tenderness variation at different chilling regimes and aging times. Hot boned longissimus lumborum of 18 Chinese crossbred cattle were divided into 4 portions per side. One portion underwent very fast chilling (VFC, at − 21 °C to achieve core temperature of 0 °C, then transferred to another incubator at 2 °C), whereas other treatments were held at 14, 7 and 0 °C for 10 h postmortem, respectively. At 10 h postmortem, all muscles were vacuum aged at 2 °C for 21 d. Cold shortened muscles had greatest absolute amount of tenderization during aging. VFC caused lowest sarcomere length, with super-contractions, ruptured Z-lines and myofibril cleavage, but improved myofibril fragmentation index (MFI), with no significant negative effect on toughness. Overall, aging improved the meat quality of cold shortened beef. Moreover, it should be prudent in some applications to apply VFC to excised muscles from a food safety perspective, and to improve tenderness compared to cold-shortened muscles.