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HOW TO MEASURE THE WATER-HOLDING CAPACITY OF MEAT?

RECOMMENDATION OF STANDARDIZED METHODS

K.O. Honikel
Federal Centre for Meat Research, Kulmbach
Federal Republic of Germany

ABSTRACT
In principle, water-holding capacity (WHC) is defined as the ability
of meat to hold all or part of its own water. There exist, however, no
reference unit nor reference procedures for measuring WHC which have been
adopted in general in meat science or technology. Therefore a wide varie-
ty of methods are used, due to the fact that meat is handled and processed
in a variety of ways. Also the meaning of WHC may vary. People who slaughter,
chill, transport and sell fresh meat understand by WHC the weight or drip
loss of carcasses or cuts. Consumers and processors of "ready to eat" meat
understand by WHC its cooking loss. The present work illustrates that the
WHC measured as drip loss does not allow conclusions about the cooking
loss of fresh meat. Two standardized procedures for drip loss and cooking
loss determination will be recommended after the factors that influence
these WHC determinations are evaluated.
INTRODUCTION
Muscles of live animals contain 70 - 75 % water which is bound
primarily to the muscle proteins within the muscle cell. The high pH of
about 7.0 in the muscle cell and its physiological salt concentration
allows the muscle proteins to bind about 90 % of the water intracellularly.
This ability of muscles we call water-holding capacity (WHC). After the
death of the animal the pH of normal beef and pork muscle starts to fall
to its ultimate value of about pH 5.5. This pH fall reduces the ability
of the muscle proteins to hold the water tightly. The WHC of the muscles
decreases (Hamm, 1972). Additionally the velocity of the pH fall in
combination with the temperature of the muscle during this time influences
WHC. Slow pH fall and rapid temperature decrease induces cold shortening
with an enhanced drip loss, whereas slow pH fall at very low chilling rates
causes rigor shortening again with an increased drip loss (Honikel et al.,
1986). Fast glycolyzing muscles at prevailing high temperatures result in
PSE muscles with a rapid release of exudate from the meat (Honikel and Kim,
1985; Honikel, 1986).
So besides pH itself, the temperature/time/pH conditions in muscles
in the first hours post mortem influence WHC. Drip loss of meat is effec-
ted by all these factors, the cooking loss, however, is effected primarily
P. V. Tarrant et al. (eds.), Evaluation and Control of Meat Quality in Pigs
© ECSC, EEC, EAEC, Brussels-Luxembourg 1987
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by the pH of the meat. Also,cooking loss is greatly effected by the

conditions of cooking (Bendall and Restall, 1983; Kopp and Bonnet, 1985).
As different factors influence drip and cooking loss it cannot be
expected that drip loss results allow reliable conclusions about cooking
loss and vice versa. Therefore separate methods must be used.
In this paper the factors that influence drip and cooking loss will
be described and taking these into account two standardized procedures
will be recommended.

FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE DRIP AND COOKING LOSS

As mentioned above, the pH of the meat influences WHC. Furthermore
the WHC depends on the muscle type and the degree of marbling. Also the
species of animal influences the WHC of the meat due to variations in
the muscle composition and structure. In addition to these factors
the drip loss depends on
1) size and shape of the sample. The surface to weight ratio is important
for the amount of drip released. A larger surface area per weight unit
increases the drip loss per unit time.
2) treatment during conditioning period. As mentioned above, rapid chilling
of prerigor muscles may lead to cold shortening and very slow chilling
may lead to rigor shortening as is shown in Fig. 1.

The shortening of sarcomeres was at a minimum when muscles were

chilled to 10 - 15°C within the prerigor period i.e. at pH values above
6.0. The drip loss released from these muscles within 7 days of storage
(Fig. 2) coincided, with respect to the minimum of drip loss and shape
of curves, with the sarcomere shortening in Fig. 1. There was indeed a
linear relationship between final sarcomere length and drip loss of pork
and beef muscles as shown in Fig. 3.
As also mentioned above, PSE conditions are induced by a rapid
pH fall at prevailing high temperatures. Results are presented in Fig. 4
for drip loss in slices of M. long. dorsi taken from a pig carcass
with a pHI value of 6.0 and subjected to different chilling conditions.
One pair of slices was stored and slowly chilled simulating PSE condi-
tions, the other pair was chilled rather rapidly thus avoiding PSE
conditions and simulating normal meat quality.