Relationship between water content, NaCl content, pH and texture parameters in dry-cured muscles

The aim of the present study was to describe the effect of NaCl and pH on the relationship between water content and hardness, cohesiveness and springiness in dry-cured muscles. The experiment was undertaken using 18 hams, selected in a commercial slaughterhouse. Half of the hams had a pH < 5.7 and the rest a pH > 6.2, measured on the semimembranosus muscle at 24-h postmortem. The semimembranosus and biceps femoris muscles were cut from hams, cured and individually packaged in bags and were laid in trays in a room at 2 ± 2 °C for 45 days. Thereafter nine samples from each muscle were shaped like a parallelepiped and dried until different levels of drying, ranging from 28.5% to 59.7% water content, were attained. The rest of the muscle was ground and packaged until its subsequent physicochemical analysis. At the end of the drying period, a Texture Profile Analysis was used to determine textural parameters. The results indicated that for a range of X (kg H2O/kg dry matter) between 0.8 and 1.3 the hardness remains practically unchanged while for X < 0.6 the hardness increases substantially. The samples from hams with low pHSM had greater hardness, cohesiveness and springiness than those from hams with high pHSM. Dry-cured muscles with lower NaCl content showed lower hardness, cohesiveness and springiness, especially in those with pHSM > 6.2. At X values lower than 0.6 the hardness was more influenced by water content than by NaCl content or pHSM.