Low temperature cooking of pork meat — Physicochemical and sensory aspects

• Low temperature cooking of pork meat improves cooking yield and juiciness.
• Prolonged cooking below 60 °C leads to pork meat tenderization.
• Particularly tender meat is not necessarily needed to gain consumers' acceptance.
• Cooking losses have to be minimized to avoid unpleasant, crumbly meat texture.

Low-temperature cooking is increasingly used in the food sector. This study compared three different low temperature heating methods and one conventional cooking procedure of pork meat in a combi steamer with special emphasis on sensory parameters. Low temperature, long time (LTLT) treatments over 20 h at 53 °C or 58 °C (LTLT 53 °C or 58 °C) showed considerable effects on meat tenderization. Heating to a core temperature of 60 °C (low temperature method = LT) at 60 °C oven temperature resulted in less tender but clearly juicier meat. LTLT 53 °C and LT were evaluated as being equally acceptable by the panelists. The tenderest meat (LTLT 58 °C) was mainly rejected because of a crumbly and dry mouth feeling. Conventional heating to a core temperature of 80 °C at 180 °C oven temperature resulted in low eating quality due to high toughness and low juiciness.