Quality and Acceptability of Fresh and Long-Term Frozen In-Bag Dry-Aged Lean Bull Beef

Table 6

Effect of ageing treatments and ageing time on A_w and surface microbial growth of fresh-and-never frozen in-bag dry-aged lean bull beef.

Attributes	Ageing time	Treatments				SED	SA × AV
		T1	T2	T3	T4
Aw	0 d	0.992x	0.993x	0.994x	0.992x	0.001	0.325
	21 d	0.987y	0.987y	0.988y	0.986y
	p ageing time	0.005		0.003
Microbial load (log cfu/g)
APC	0 d	4.21x	2.62	3.09	2.74x	0.61	0.281
	21 d	2.50y	3.29	2.56	2.00y
	p ageing time	0.038	0.459	0.494
LAB	0 d	1.15	ND	1.50	ND	0.07	—
	21 d	ND	ND	ND	ND
	p ageing time	—	—	—	—
Mould	0 d	1.39	ND	ND	ND	0.05	—
	21 d	ND	1.00	ND	ND
	p ageing time	—	—	—	—
Yeast	0 d	2.21x	ND	1.48	1.39	0.40	0.003
	21 d	4.06ay	1.57b	2.12b	2.41b
	p ageing time	0.007	—	0.237	0.076
Enterobacteriaceae	0 d	3.16	1.84	1.38	1.71	0.71	—
	21 d	ND	2.69	ND	1.35
	p ageing time	—	—	—	—
E. coli (MPN/g)	0 d/21 d	ND	ND	ND	ND	—	—

ND: not detected; BD: in-bag dry-ageing; W: wet-ageing; SA: stepwise ageing; AV: air velocity. T1: BD at 0.5 m·s⁻¹ for 21 d; T2: BD at 0.5 m·s⁻¹ 7 d + W for 14 d; T3: BD at 1.5 m·s⁻¹ for 7 d + W for 14 d; T4: BD at 2.5 m·s⁻¹ for 7 d + W for 14 d. presented as for level of significance. Different letters of “x, y, or z” within the same column mean results are significantly different from each other (). Different letters of “a, b, or c” within the same row mean results are significantly different from each other ().