Quality of camel meat in the slaughterhouse of Ouargla in Algeria. I. Some physical and chemical characteristics of meat during ageing

The physicochemical parameters of four muscles (semitendinosus [ST], rectus femoris [RF] longissimus thoracis [LT] and semimembranosus [SM]), stored at 4°C, were measured during ageing in male camels (10 young aged three to four years, and 10 adults over five years) of Sahrawi breed. A decrease in postmortem temperature reached a minimum of 5.7 ± 0.20°C (LT) in adults, whereas the minimum value in the young was lower with 3.9 ± 0.68°C (ST). The pH of the studied muscles decreased during the postmortem period. The minimum values ranged from 5.2 ± 1.11 (RF) to 5.7 ± 0.02 (LT) in the young, and from 5.6 ± 0.05 (SM) to 6.3 ± 0 53 (ST) in adults. The amount of extractable water increased for the four muscles in both age groups. The maximum values were 0.21 ± 0.040 g per gram of RF muscle in the young, and 0.21 ± 0.009 g per gram of RF muscle in adults. This meant that the water retention capacity of the different muscles decreased during the postmortem period. The electrical conductivity did not follow the same pattern for all the studied muscles. A slight increase in this parameter was detected over time in LT (117.3 ± 0.30 µS/cm/g) in the young, and in ST (158.3 ± 0.14 µS/cm/g) in the adults