Longissimus and pectoralis muscles were
removed from 10 steer carcasses at 4 days
postmortem , aged for 14 days at 4 ̊F, then
assigned to either ultrasound (ULS) or convection
(Conv) cooking to either 144 or 15 8 ̊F
internal temperature. Ultrasound cooking was
faster (P<.05), had greater (P<.05) moisture
retention and less (P<.05) cooking loss, and
used less energy (P<.05). It also produced
muscle samples that required less (P<.05) peak
force to shear than those from Conv cooking
and resulted in superior (P<.05) myofibrillar
tenderness. No significant interactions occurred
among cooking method, muscle, or endpoint
temperature. As expected, longissimus (ribeye)
muscles cooked faster (P< .05) and required less
(P<.05) energy and were superior (P<.05) in
instrumentally measured texture and sensory
tenderness than pectoralis muscles. Cooking to
158EF caused greater (P<.05) moisture and
cooking losses, required more (P<.05) time and
energy, and degraded (P<.05) instrumental
textural and sensor y characteristics. Ultrasound
offers a new cooking mode that could increase
cooking speed, improve energy efficiency and
improve some textural characteristics,
compared to conventional cooking.
