Assessment of three devices used in shear tests of cooked breast meat.

Methods that increase processing efficiency to save energy costs and to improve yield and volume must be evaluated in terms of maintaining or improving final product quality. Shear tests measure the force to cut through fibers of cooked samples. They are the simplest and most common tests used to document cooked meat texture. However, information obtained from shearing devices that perform in a similar way may not be interchangeable. In this study, three shearing devices were assessed. Eight treatments were imposed on broiler breasts processed under commercial conditions to represent ranges of texture characteristics. Treatments included electrical stimulation (S), or no stimulation (NS) of carcasses; postchill deboning at 2 or 6 h; and marination (M), or no marination (NM). Shear force values of cooked breasts were obtained from the benchtop Warner-Bratzler (BT-WB) machine, the Warner-Bratzler blade attachment (TA-WB) and a 45 degrees chisel-end blade attachment (TA-WD). The TA-WB and TA-WD were attached to Model TA.XT2 texture analyzer. For each device, shear value differences were significant (P < 0.05) for deboning time. Marination effects were significant (P < 0.05) for BT-WB and TA-WB. Stimulation by debone interactions were significant (P < 0.05) for BT-WB and TA-WD. The TA-WD values varied the greatest over all treatments (SD = 5.52; SE = 0.65). Variations of BT-WB and TA-WB shear values were similar (SD = 3.25, 2.97, respectively; SE = 0.38, 0.35).