Determinação da absorção de água em carcaças condicionais de frangos em sistema de resfriamento por imersão

Abstract

With the increase consumption of chicken by Brazilian consumer, grows the industry objectives for quality and optimization processes. The high levels of water absorption by carcasses during the pre-cooling phase, made the inspection create the Ordinance 210/98 and the Normative Instruction 34/10, responsible for regulate the inspection methods and the absorption levels by carcasses. In view of its exhibition and high absorption rates that conditional carcasses has, this work aims to determine the absorption of conditional carcasses considering the main factors that affect water absorption. Throughout the year 2013, were collected data of humidity, protein and humidity ratio protein and after that was determined the absorption of conditional carcasses in pre-chiller and chiller and the absorption water only in chiller carcasses. The humidity values for all cuts remained next limit, being 72.2% ± 0.68 to thigh, 70.47% ± 0.43 to drumstick and 74.93% ± 0.61 to chest. All carcasses showed higher absorptions values when forwarded to pre-chiller and chiller, comparing to absorptions when this carcasses were sent just for chiller. Carcasses without wing and thigh, shown the highest level of absorption possibly due to exposition of chest muscle. However when forwarded just to chiller the absorption reduces, but the temperatures showed near to the limit established by legislation. Therefore it was concluded the aims to allocate the conditional carcasses to a own chiller with its own characteristics.