[The Effect of Soaking Time in Sodium Lactate on the Shelf Life of Beef in Room Temperature]

Abstract

The research on the effect of soaking time in sodium lactate on the shelf life of beef in a room tempera-ture storage was done using 5 kg of beef, that was sliced into 20 pieces (250 g/piece), and then were divided in to five groups. The design of this experiment was a completely randomized design with 5 treatments and 4 replications. The treatments were the soaking time in sodium lactate 6% for 0 hour (R o ), 1 hour (R 1 ), 2 hours (R 2 ), 3 hours (R 3 ) and 4 hours (R 4 ), and then these were stored in a room temperature. The variables observed were meat colour, pH, protein content, bacteria colony count and shelf life of meat. The results indicated that the soaking time in sodium lactate significantly affected (P <0.01) the shelf life of meat. It showed that the increasing of soaking time up to 3 hours caused significantly enhanced the shelf life of meat on room temperatur storage. Keywords : sodium lactate, soaking, shelf life, beef