A Study On Color Control Of Smoked Ham

Meat color is a reflection of sensory quality of meat,which is the major factor for the consumers to make a choice to purchase.Abnormal color of the surface and interior of the meat products will reduce consumers' willingness to purchase.Color changes during processing will affect the appearance of meat products.Usually,a certain amount of pigments will be added to obtain a bright red color,and stimulate the purchasing willingness of consumer,and improve product competitiveness.In this study,we studied effects of raw meat quality,added pigment and smoking process on color stability of the smoked ham.We investigated the influence of color and moisture content of raw meat on the fading of smoked ham.The photo-stability of the temptation red,monascus red and cochineal red pigment was assayed to obtain an optimized formulation that could slow up smoked ham fading.1.The results showed that the L value(brightness)and a value(red)of raw meat decreased but b values(yellowness)increased with the extension of storage time.L value,a value and b value of smoked ham was not affected by raw meat.2.The absorbance of Allura red,Monascus red and cochineal red pigment significantly decreased as illumination time increased,while the absorbance value of monascus pigment decreased significantly.And thus Allura red and cochineal red were applied for subsequent experiments.The results showed that the products using the optimized compound pigment had no obvious fading phenomenon with illumination increased.This suggests that the optimized compound pigment of smoked ham had better anti-fading effect.3.Smoking before cooking had a better color and slower fading rate than that of cooking before smoking.Several wood,including apple wood,pear wood,jujube wood and workshop sawdust(encina wood dominated)were compared.And the results showed that pear wood had the best effect,followed by apple wood,jujube wood,and workshop sawdust.The color changes Delta E of smoked ham were 2.15(pear wood),4.25(apple wood),4.45(jujube wood)and 10.45(workshop sawdust)after illumination for 50 days.The results also showed that the products color smoked by the sawdust plus sugar smoked were better than that of single wood smoked,and the color changes Delta E(4.96)was significantly lower than that of single wood smoked products(7.03),indicating that the surface color of smoked ham smoked by sawdust plus sugar was superior to that smoked by single wood immediately after smoking or illuminating for 50 days.