Effect of salt and moisture content reduction on physical and microbiological properties of salted, pressed and freeze dried turkey meat

• An increase of hardness of turkey meat by drying was not found related to shrinkages.
• Partial drying reduced freeze drying time compared to complete drying in freeze dryer.
• Reducing both salt and moisture content did not affect physical properties.
• Microbial load was not increased by salt reduction if moisture was also reduced.

The effect of salt content, pressing and moisture content on textural, micro structural and color characteristics, adsorption isotherms and microbiological count of turkey breast meat were studied. There were no statistically significant differences (P ≥ 0.05) between samples including high salt-moisture and low salt-moisture for color (lightness, redness and yellowness) and textural properties of hardness, cohesiveness, springiness and chewiness parameters and they were determined as 59.10–65.76, 0.30–0.28, 1.27–1.19 and 22.44–22.21, respectively. Total mesophilic aerobic counts, Micrococcus/Staphylococcus counts and yeast/mold counts of samples including low salt and moisture were detected as 3.23, 0, 2.98 (log cfu/g) and they were lower than the same counts of samples including high salt and moisture which were found as 6.66, 6.69, 5.95 (log cfu/g) after 70 days of storage. The reduction of salt content did not increase the growth of these microorganisms if we also decrease the moisture content of turkey meat by freeze drying process. Increase of hardness of turkey meat by drying is not found related to shrinkages according to comparison of air and freeze drying. Reduction of moisture content to 40% reduced freeze dying time to 7 h from 27 h of complete drying in freeze dryer.