A practice-oriented comparative study

By a new procedure, the aging of pork and beef took place under aerobic conditions. Investigations carried out were to show advantages and disadvantages of the new, aerobic, method of aging, as opposed to conventional, anaerobic aging of beef and pork. Anaerobic aging causes the meat to become brown in colour and, with beef, necessitates an aging period of two to three weeks. Aerobic aging should avoid the unwelcome discoloration and the aging of beef should take no longer than from five to seven days only. Due to an improved oxygen concentration, pathogenic germs should be impaired, or their growth prevented. By comparison with anaerobic aging, loss of weight, pH-value and sensory analysis should yield better or at least equal results. By the investigations carried out, meat aging under aerobic conditions was shown to be advantageous with regard to colour, a bright red in pork as much as in beef, and with regard to a shortened aging period in the case of beef. However, approximately ten days after aerobic aging, the meat colour irreversible changes. After prolonged storage, other parameters which had been investigated, such as bacterial count, loss of weight, and taste, turned out significantly inferior in aerobically aged meat as opposed to conventionally aged meat. Aerobic aging does have advantages if the meat reaches the consumer immediately after the aging period. Where the distribution of meat makes prolonged storage indispensable, conventional aging is considerably better suited.