Pre-rigor processing of meat?Explain it significance.
Answers
Pre-rigor meat needs to be ground or chopped, in order to get the CO2 well mixed into the meat to rapidly reduce the meat temperature. Ice may be used, except that fresh sausage is limited to 3% water and that level of ice is not sufficient to adequately reduce the meat temperature. Grinding is more efficient and produces more consistent sized particles, than chopping, but adjustments may need to be made to the feeding rate with hot meat. Choppers do allow for immediate mixing of added salt, water and CO2 as chopping is occurring, but the batch size of a chopper may limit the speed of this operation. A grinder-mixer operation slightly extends the time to get the hot meat in contact with the salt and CO2. If grinding, it is important to prevent or control “roll back,” which is the churning of meat between the auger and the barrel of the grinder. Roll back is caused by the auger forcing the meat against the plate, at a faster rate than the cutting knives can handle.To reduce roll back, either decrease the auger speed and increase the number of cutter blades (which reduce output) or change the pitch and reduce the clearance of the auger flights (to potentially increase output). To maximize the effect of pre-rigor/hot-boned meat, the salt, water and CO2 need to be mixed with the ground/chopped blend within 90 minutes or less, after the hog was bled on the kill floor.