Table 2.
Effect of ageing treatments on the physico-chemical and microbial properties of lamb chops.
| W 1 | BD 1 | SED 2 | p-Ageing | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pH | 5.92 a | 6.04 b | 0.02 | <0.0001 |
| % Moisture | 73.25 a | 67.30 b | 0.37 | <0.0001 |
| % Crude fat | 5.93 | 6.82 | 0.46 | 0.058 |
| % Muscle protein | 16.54 a | 20.22 b | 0.24 | <0.0001 |
| % Cook loss | 27.79 a | 16.94 b | 0.67 | <0.0001 |
| % Total loss | 28.48 a | 36.52 b | 0.56 | <0.0001 |
| Meat Surface Microbial Count (Mean log cfu/g) | ||||
| Aerobic bacteria | 5.16 a | 2.68 b | 0.75 | 0.030 |
| Lactic acid bacteria | 2.64 | n.d. | - | - |
| Moulds | n.d. 3 | n.d. | - | - |
| Yeast | 2.38 a | 3.75 b | 0.47 | 0.043 |
| Enterobacteriaceae | 2.36 | n.d. | - | - |
| Escherichia coli (log MPN/g) | n.d. | n.d. | - | - |
1 W and BD refer to wet-aged and in-bag dry-aged, respectively; 2 SED is the standard error of a difference between means; 3 n.d. refers to not detectable (under detection limit, <1.00 log cfu/g for moulds and Enterobacteriaceae, and <0.48 log MPN/g for Escherichia coli); Different superscript letters “a, b” within the same row indicate that results significantly differed from each other (p < 0.05).