Analysis of muscle deformation and nacl homogenization in brine injection and tumbling

Homogenization of salt content in meat is known to be a key factor for quality of tumbled meat products, like cooked ham. However no spatial salt distribution were found during tumbling after brine injection. In addition, deformation of meat cuts in tumblers which enhances salt migration was unknown. First, both kinetics and rates of deformation were estimated from slow-motion films (1000 frames/s) of two types of ham muscles falling. Duration and rate of muscle deformation varied from 20 to 120 ms and from a few % to 40%, respectively. Then, such deformations were applied to Semimembranosus pork muscles after brine injection (25 % NaCl content and injection rate 10 % w/w ) thanks to a new laboratory tumbling simulator. NaCl content spatial distributions were assessed from 39 samples in each muscle. The distribution was logically very uneven a few minutes after injection. After 2500 deformations at 30% deformation rate it roughly followed a Gauss like curve, centred on the expected mean NaCl content value but was still inhomogeneous