Effects of Extended Deboning Times on the Breast Meat Quality of Fast-Growing Big Broilers

Abstract

Big broilers can be affected with wooden breast myopathy leading to quality issues such as tough meat texture. Toughness is possibly enhanced due to deboning broilers at 2-3 h post mortem with incomplete resolution of rigor mortis. In a two-part study, we investigated the effects of extended deboning times on meat quality and optimized them to obtain tender fillets. Breast fillets deboned at 2, 16, 20 and 24 h from big broilers (n = 90) were compared to normal jumbo, wooden jumbo, and normal medium fillets for meat quality attributes (color, texture and cook loss). Data indicated that the texture attributes (peak force, shear energy and peak counts) of extended deboned fillets were significantly lower (p≤0.05) than the woody fillets indicating tender fillet. There was no statistical difference between cook loss, color, and Blunt MORS (BMORS) (p<0.05) when compared between the 16, 20 and 24 h treatments indicating complete resolution of rigor at 16 h. Another study was conducted to evaluate if less than 16 h deboning times can be used to improve meat quality. Toughness, indicated by peak force and shear energy, significantly decreased (p≤0.05) with an increase in deboning times from, 3 to 27 h. Peak force and shear energy values at 3 h decreased (p≤0.05) from 21.86 N and 264.15 N.mm to 16.16 N and 205.17 N.mm, respectively after 11 h post-mortem. In conclusion, extended deboning time of 7-27 h can significantly improve the texture of breast fillets from fast-growing broilers.