Effect of different thawing techniques on certain quality parameters of different cut-up parts of broiler chicken

Abstract

The freezing and thawing processes used in food preparation have significantly affected the quality of the meat. Broiler chicken cut-up parts vary in quality parameters depending on the location of the carcass. The uniform-sized cut-up parts were separately frozen overnight in an ultra-low temperature freezer (-40±2°C). The frozen broiler cut-up parts were thawed using household refrigerator (4±1°C), cool room condition (20±3°C), hot air oven (60±3°C), tap water (27±5°C), and hot water (40±1°C) conditions separately, up to the internal temperature reached to 10°C excluding the household refrigerator technique, where the internal temperature was remained at 4°C. In this study, moisture content, water holding capacity, drip loss, cooking loss, and pH were investigated. The method of thawing technique and the cut-up portions of frozen broiler meat had significant effects (p<0.01) in terms of moisture content, pH, cooking loss, water holding capacity and drip loss. Comparatively, the minimal quality reductions were observed in the low-temperature thawing techniques, whereas the oven technique showed the higher quality reductions in the cut-up parts.