Restructured Whole-Tissue Meats 409set at 4 ° C for 6 hours before freezing. Boles
and Shand (1998) restructured beef inside
rounds using alginate and Fabrimex TM
binding systems, and held the restructured
logs from both systems at 4 ° C for 17 hours
to set. Pork rolls restructured with Activa TM
and Fibrimex TM binding systems were set at
0 ° to 4 ° C for 17 to 18 hours (Flores et al.
2007 ).Packaging and Storage of
Cold - Set Products
Raw chilled cold - set products can be pack-
aged in overwrapped trays or gas - fl ushed
pouches. With proper packaging and storage
temperature, the effective product storage
life of whole - tissue restructured products can
be similar to their whole - tissue nonrestruc-
tured counterparts. Bell et al. (1994) restruc-
tured beef steaks using Pearl - F TM and alginate
binding systems, determined the chilled
product life of the raw restructured steaks
under vacuum or carbon dioxide, and found
the following: (1) neither the alginate nor the
Pearl binding system contributed signifi -
cantly to the initial microbial contamination
or infl uenced the development of spoilage
microfl ora on the restructured steaks; (2) if
products were stored at 3 ° C, carbon dioxide
packaging gave little advantage in respect to
restricting spoilage microfl ora development
relative to vacuum packaging; (3) if storage
was at – 1.5 ° C, carbon dioxide was better
than vacuum packaging in limiting the
number and composition of spoilage micro-
fl ora developing on the stored products; (4)
when stored at – 1.5 ° C, Pearl restructured
steaks had suffi cient microbiological, color,
and fl avor stability for the retail market,
while alginate restructured steaks packaged
under CO 2 and stored at – 1.5 ° C had a rather
limited color stability and consequently
appeared to be more appropriate for hotel,
restaurant, and institutional (HRI) trade than
for retail distribution; (5) the effective
product storage life at – 1.5 ° C under carboncooking to set. Cold - set products can be sold
raw in chilled or frozen forms.
Application of Cold - Set Binders
Ingredients in the cold binding systems are
sprinkled and mixed with the meat pieces,
rubbed/dusted onto the meat pieces as dry
powders, or mixed with water into smooth
slurry before mixing with the meat. Regardless
of how the binder is applied, it is important
to avoid formation of clumps during the
application and to make sure surfaces to be
bound are coated very well. The ingredients
in a binding system may be added sequen-
tially or as a premix. Esguerra (1994) applied
three cold - set binding systems as follows: (1)
alginate was applied using a fi ne sieve in
order to obtain uniform dispersion of the
binder and to avoid pockets in the fi nal
product; (2) Fibrimex was mixed with water
to form a solution of the binder before mixing
with meat; and (3) Pearl F powder was spread
evenly on a tray, and meat slices were pressed
into the powder. Farouk et al. (2005b) used
a premix of alginate binding system (3:3:1,
alginate/GDL/CaCO 3 ) and a water solution
of Activa to successfully restructure whole -
tissue hot - boned beef.
Cold - Setting
Once the cold binder is mixed with the meat
pieces and shaped, the molded mix should be
held at an appropriate temperature for long
enough to enable the binder to set and bind
together the meat pieces. An alginate binding
system is faster setting than transglutamin-
ase. In order to avoid pre - gelation during
processing or before the product is shaped,
the calcium source in an alginate binding
system is added at the last stage of the
process. The setting temperature and time for
the commonly used cold - binding systems in
meat restructuring is 0 ° to 4 ° C and 6 to 24
hours, respectively. Raharjo et al. (1994)
held restructured veal steaks using alginate to