Development Of Ready-to Eat Semi-Dried Duck Meat Particles

As a healthy and popular animal food material, process duck breast into ready-to eat semi-dried duck meat particles that have good quality in taste and preservability, which can not only solve the traditional dried meat’s problem and meet the need of market, but also promote a healthy development of livestock and poultry industry in China. In this paper, through controlling the drying process improvement and using water activity lowering agent, solve the contradiction between the quality and storage of product, developed a leisure product of semi-dried duck meat particles.Aw influences on the taste quality and storage stability of dried duck meat particles were firstly investigated. The moisture sorption isotherms were measured to determine the relationship between Aw and equilibrium moisture content in dried duck meat particles stored under different temperatures. The proper Aw and moisture in product was determined as0.95-0.90and35%-50%, by evaluating sensory qualities and texture properties of duck meat particles of different moisture. Changes of total plate count, mold count and yeast count of duck meat particles of different Aw in storage were investigated, so were the effects of Aw on thiobarbituric acid (TBA) value and color value of the product. The product storage stability turned to be satisfactory with a Aw<0.8. Eventually, a moisture of35%was determined for semi-dried duck meat particles.The combined hot-air-microwave drying conditions were optimized by orthogonal experiments next, taking the single hot-air drying and microwave drying as the contrasts. The color value, texture and TBA value of semi-dried duck meat particles were taken as the evaluation indexes. The results showed that the optimal drying process involved hot air drying at60℃for water content of65%as the transition point and subsequent microwave drying at5W/g.Influences of6kinds of Aw lowering agents on Aw and texture of semi-dried duck meat particles were then analyzed. A formula composition of compound Aw lowering agents was optimized by orthogonal experiments, including3%NaCl,4%glycerol,1.5%ethanol and0.4%compound phosphate, which successfully lowered the Aw of semi-dried duck meat from0.85to0.75, and did not impact on its flavor. The contradictory between sensory quality and preservability of semi-dried duck meat particles was thus solved. Storage experiments were finally conducted on of semi-dried duck meat particle. The ready-to-eat product was stored under37℃for60d, while the total plate count was within national limit standards. Besides, the TBA value, pH and sensory qualities were all in an acceptable range.