Quality of aged meat from Charolais vs Nellore cattle

The aim of this study was evaluate the physical-chemical changes in aged meat from Charolais x Nellore cattle. For that, 38 male with an average weight of 437.08 ± 15.06 kg, were used. After 24 hours of refrigeration, the half right carcass was cut in the 13ª rib to collect 35 cm samples from longissimus dorsi muscle. The samples were sliced, vacuum packed and aged for zero, seven and fourteen days, after the ageing time, the samples were frozen, to make analysis of exudate water loss, shear force, pressing water loss, pH, color (L*, a*, b*, chroma and hue value), sensorial analysis, microbiology, and myofibrillar fragmentation index. The experimental design was completely randomized and the data were submitted to analysis of variance and the means compared by Tukey test in 5%. The microbiological analysis showed that all the bacterium evaluated had their growth period until the aged day seven, and decreased to the aged day 14. The pH decreased with the increasing of time. The water loss and myofibrillar fragmentation index weren’t affected by the ageing period. Shear force and color components (L*, a*, b * chroma and hue value) were affected by the ageing, being the 14 days the best result. The sensorial analysis has only show differences to tenderness. The aged cattle beef vacuum packed did not lose the fresh meat characteristics, however improved the tenderness