Effects of Salting and Drying on Shark (Carcharhinus sorrah) Meat Quality Characteristics

Keywords Desorption isotherm; Drying; Quality; Salting; Shark meat INTRODUCTION Dried salted fish is consumed in many countries, especially in developing countries where they constitute

Effects of Salting and Drying on Shark

(Carcharhinus sorrah) Meat Quality

Characteristics

DOI: 10.1080/07373930802046294

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Meat Quality Characteristics

Nejib Guizani, Ali Obaid Al-Shoukri, Ann Mothershaw,

and Mohammad Shafiur Rahman

Department of Food Science and Nutrition, College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences,

Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

The effect of drying method and pretreatment with salt on the

properties of shark meat was investigated Water loss during the

salting step was faster with dry salting than with brine salting;

how-ever, both methods led to the same final water content at the end of

the drying process Moisture desorption isotherms showed that

addition of salt prior to sun or air drying resulted in lower

equilib-rium moisture contents at the same water activity levels Salting and

method of drying had significant effects on the microbial load

Osmo-air-dried samples showed better microbial quality than

sam-ples treated by other methods Molds grew on all samsam-ples after

two months of storage at room temperature Color and rehydration

ratio were affected by the drying method Higher dehydration ratios

were obtained with air drying

Keywords Desorption isotherm; Drying; Quality; Salting; Shark

meat

INTRODUCTION

Dried salted fish is consumed in many countries,

especially in developing countries where they constitute

preservation activity of drying is dependent on the

reduction of water activity to stop or slow down the growth

of spoilage microorganisms, as well as the occurrence and

rate of chemical and enzymatic reactions Fish and seafood

are prone to rapid microbial spoilage; thus, adequate care

treatment received before drying are important factors to

produce safe products Drying of highly perishable

products, such as fish at low temperature, raises the risk

Salting is a preliminary step in the drying process and is

critical to obtain a commercial product with an adequate

shelf-life and good quality Using salt before drying will

enhance the capability of drying to reduce water activity

to lower values within a short time Osmotic dehydration

is an important technology that enables both the removal

of water from the product and the modification of its functional properties by impregnation of desired solutes Osmotic dehydration is commonly performed by immer-sion of the product in salt solutions It creates countercur-rent mass transfer fluxes of water and solutes, namely water outflow from the product to the surrounding solution and solute infusion into the product In addition, leakage of the product solutes has an impact on the organoleptic properties and nutritional value of the

growth of many spoilage microorganisms In addition,

Dried shark (local name Uwal) is popular in Oman and other Gulf countries Traditionally, shark is sundried and

is usually kept at room temperature and consumed without any further thermal treatment Before drying, fresh shark is filleted, washed, lightly salted, and then dried under the sun The process is not standardized, and variations occur

in the salting method (dry vs brine), salt concentration, size and density of fish pieces, and humidity, temperature, and time of drying Consequently, there are no standard

microbiology of the product The final product is offered

to the consumer in various forms including whole, skinned, and sliced It is usually distributed without packaging, although on some occasions it is sold in plastic bags The processing and the exposure of the dried shark provide

Moreover, in Oman Uwal is often eaten without any heat treatment, which may increase any potential health risk The aim of this work was to optimize the individual proces-sing steps of salting method and drying conditions involved

in the production of dried shark in order to improve the quality and safety of the product This was achieved by

Correspondence: Nejib Guizani, Department of Food Science

and Nutrition, College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences,

Sultan Qaboos University, P.O Box 34, Al-Khod-123, Muscat,

Sultanate of Oman; E-mail: guizani@squ.edu.om

# 2008 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0737-3937 print/1532-2300 online

DOI: 10.1080/07373930802046294

705

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studying the effect of two drying methods (sun and

convec-tion air) used alone or in combinaconvec-tion of one salting

method (brine or dry salting) on the microbiology,

chemi-cal composition, rehydration ratio, and color of dried

shark meat

METHODOLOGY

Sample Preparation

Fresh shark fish Carcharhinus sorrah were brought fresh

from the local fish market, Al-Seeb, Sultanate of Oman,

and transported within 30 min in ice to Sultane Qaboos

University After washing in tap water, the fish were

fil-leted Shark fish meat samples were prepared immediately

for drying by cutting into strips of approximately

groups, one for dry salting and the other for brine salting

The shark strips were then salted and dried using different

methods

Salting Procedures

Both brine and dry salting procedures were used Brine

salting was conducted in plastic containers at ambient

coat-ing fish samples with a layer of salt crystals at a ratio of

1:0.5 kg salt Samples of brine salted fish were removed

from the brine and towel-dried at predetermined intervals

to determine the water content For dry salted samples,

excess salt was scraped off the surface before analysis

Drying Procedures

Sun Drying

For sun drying, shark fish strips were exposed to sun,

suspended by string with a bent hook at one end for better

air circulation Shark meat samples were hung on the roof

of a two-story building in the open sun for 7 days All test

samples were dried at the same time during the months of

June to August, when the temperature ranged between 35

% RH (relative humidity) was 72–81%

Air Drying

Shark meat strips were arranged into a single layer in a

metal mesh tray and then placed inside a convection oven

Depart-ment of Food Science and Nutrition, Sultan Qaboos

University, Oman, with a control temperature and

surface of the sample using a fan The samples were loosely

spread to improve air circulation This temperature was

selected for its relevance to commercially used air drying

products For the drying procedure the temperature of

was allowed to stabilize at this value for at least 30 min before samples were placed inside

Drying Rate Drying curves for shark meat samples were followed during the salting pretreatment and during the air drying The drying rates were determined and compared to identify the effects of salting and drying methods on the drying kinetics of shark meat The mass of each individual sample was measured using a digital balance with an accuracy of 0.001 g, immediately before salt application or insertion into the dryer Thereafter, the masses of each sample were periodically measured by briefly removing the sample from the salt (during salting period) or from the dryer (during the drying period) These measurements were used to deter-mine the weight losses of each sample at specified time intervals Samples were salted for 48 h and dried for 48 h Moisture content values were used for drawing the drying curves (Figs 1 and 2)

Desorption Isotherm The equilibrium isotherms of dried shark meat samples

placed into separate tightly closed glass jars while main-taining equilibrium relative humidity with saturated salt solutions (with a crystal layer visible at the bottom of jars)

England) Relative humidity values for these solutions were

samples were sealed within the jars for 6 weeks until a con-stant weight was achieved Then the dry matter content was determined by drying the equilibrated samples in an

content was estimated Beakers containing a solution of

FIG 1 Effect of salting technique on water content evolution during the salting period.

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thymol were placed open in high water activity jars to avoid

Chemical Composition

All shark meat samples were analyzed for their water,

total proteins, and ash content These chemical analyses

duplicate were analyzed for each treatment Moisture was

measured using a gravimetric method by drying the sample

Total nitrogen was determined by the Kjeldahl method

Ash was determined from the residue after burning in

Color Measurements

a Minolta Chroma Meter (model CR-300, Minolta Co.,

standard calibration plate provided by the manufacturer

were placed on flat plate, and the tip of the measuring head

was pointed on the samples for measurement The color of

measured The color of commercial dried shark obtained

from the local market was also measured and compared

with samples processed during this investigation

Rehydration Ratio

Rehydration ratio, which is a measure of the

rehydra-tion characteristics, was determined for dried shark fish

meat by immersing about 5 g of dried sample in tap water

to immersion in the water bath Samples were removed

from the water at predetermined time periods and the

excess water was removed from the surface by gently

patting with tissues and were then reweighed Five samples

in duplicate were performed for each treatment Rehydra-tion ratio was defined as the ratio of weight of rehydrated samples to the weight of the sample before rehydration Microbial Evaluation

Duplicate pieces of approximately 5 g were aseptically removed from the shark meat samples previously stored

at room temperature for 2 months and homogenized in sterile stomacher bags containing 45 mL of sterile 0.1% peptone water using a stomacher Lab 400 blender (Seward Medical, UK) Decimal serial dilutions were then prepared using 0.1% peptone water Aliquots of the dilutions were spread onto a range of media The culture media and incu-bation conditions used for different microbial groups were

as follows: aerobic plate count (APC) on plate count agar

identification, the macroscopic and microscopic character-istics of molds grown on PDA were observed and com-pared to illustrations and descriptions given by Pitt and

units per gram of sample All media were purchased from Oxoid (Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, UK)

Statistical Analysis Calculation of the mean values and standard deviations was performed in Excel A statistical significance test

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Effect of Salting Method on Drying Rates The effect of salting method on the evolution of water content during the salting period is shown in Fig 1 This figure shows that initially there was a fast decrease in moisture followed by a slow decrease The rate of water loss was, however, different depending on whether fish salt-ing was made by brinsalt-ing or dry saltsalt-ing The water content

of dry salted shark meat decreased more rapidly during the first salting hours (20 h) than that of brine-salted shark meat High salt concentrations (25% w=w) and dry salting were found to lead to more protein denaturation (the myo-fibrillar proteins rapidly lose water due to the salting out process), resulting in changes in texture and reduced water

during salting (Fig 1) The rate of water loss declined after

12 and 20 h for brine-salted and dry-salted samples, respectively The water content after 48 h of salting reached

meats, respectively The effect of the salting method on water evolution during the air convection drying period is

FIG 2 Effect of salting techniques on water evolution during air

convection drying.

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shown in Fig 2 The results showed that the drying rate of

dry-salted shark was slower than brine salt However, both

drying methods led to a product of similar water content at

the end of the drying period (48 h) despite the fact that the

water content of brine-salted shark meat was greater at the

end of the salting period The results of this study

reported that dry-salting sardines gave the most rapid rate

of reduction in moisture content and the lowest final

moist-ure content during salting sardine but gave a slower rate of

reduction of moisture and higher final water content

the salting process, the yellowtail fish moisture content

decreased rapidly in the first 10 h, and the higher brine

con-centration produced lower moisture content in the fish

flesh After 28 h, the yellowtail fish moisture content

in moisture and salt contents after 35 h, which could be due

movement to the surface of the food during drying is

accompanied by salt migration Water evaporation on

the surface allows the formation of a crust, which is more

important when the initial salt concentration is greater

These crusts lessen the rate of water loss by making the

studied the influence of brine concentration on weight

and texture changes during the salting process of Atlantic

salmon fillet Their results showed that the salting

pro-cedure significantly affected the total weight changes of

the fillets The weight increase of the fillets increased with

decreasing brine concentration, and the dry-salted fillets

gave the lowest process yield

Water Desorption Isotherm

Experimental water sorption data of dried shark meat

samples produced by different drying methods with or

without osmotic treatment are presented in Fig 3 As

expected, equilibrium moisture content increased

nonli-nearly with the increasing water activity Isotherms showed

that for a given water activity, equilibrium moisture

con-tent was lower for air-dried samples compared to sundried

(Fig 3) This may be due to the different levels of protein

denaturation affecting the nature of water binding In fact,

salt concentration has an effect on the degree of protein

denaturation and thus on the water adsorption by protein

The use of lower brine concentration induces a lower

degree of protein denaturation and hence increases

water-holding capacity, resulting in a total high yield of the

treatment prior to sun or air drying gave lower equilibrium

moisture content These trends were more pronounced in

the water activity region above 0.2 This is most probably

due to the penetration of salt in the fish during osmotic

pretreatment Salt has a strong effect on the adsorption

of water by protein molecules One of the factors determin-ing the behavior of the fish fillets in different saltdetermin-ing media

state of the proteins in the fish muscle has been found to

be mainly related to the salt concentration of its water

swelling occurs as a result of high water-protein interaction (maximum water-holding capacity) At higher salt concen-trations, the proteins may have strong protein-protein

binding of water by food materials and particularly

sorption sigmoid-shaped isotherms of dried shark are typi-cally divided into three parts The lower part characterizing

strongly bound to the hydrophilic charged and polar groups of proteins, with an enthalpy of vaporization con-siderably higher than pure water The high moisture at the end of this zone, called Zone I, corresponds to BET monolayer moisture At the monolayer coverage, adsorp-tion of water to the protein surface involves binding of water molecules to both polar (ionic and hydrogen bond-ing) and non-polar groups on the protein surface At

gradual This region characterizes water molecules that complete a monolayer coverage mostly by hydrogen bond-ing to preexistbond-ing bound water and, by condensation, form additional layers on top of this preexisting water layer or penetrate into newly created holes of the already swollen

ranges, uptake of water by protein is rather rapid and represents mostly multilayer water; i.e., water held in voids, crevices, capillaries, and loosely attached to protein mole-cules The high water uptake at these higher water activities indicates dissolution of major components of the system

FIG 3 Experimental data for dried shark meat and predicted desorp-tion isotherm curves for sun and air drying methods proceeded or not

by osmotic dehydration.

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A large number of sorption isotherms have been

iso-therms may be affected by food composition such as fat,

sugar, or salt content The shapes of isotherms showing

Biologi-cal and food material isotherms follow the shape of the

sig-moid type II or III isotherm according to the classification

the sorption isotherm At a water activity of 0.75, which is

isotherm becomes vertical for a given moisture content

salt-dried shark meat, the sorption isotherm increased steeply

brining of sardine at three different salt concentrations

sorption isotherms of salted fish had a different shape from

close to 0.75, which is the water activity of saturated salt

solution Similar shapes are reported for dried salted

for unsalted sardines (Sardinella aurita) and had a type

III sigmoid pattern Isotherms of raw goat meat obtained

decreased with the increase in temperature, as is generally

above 0.75, the water content increased when the NaCl

a slight effect of NaCl content in the opposite direction,

which could be explained by the increased solids due to

corre-sponds to its saturation point Thus, the crystallized NaCl absorbs little or no water

Chemical Composition The chemical composition of fresh and dried shark meats used in this study is given in Table 1 The water

usually considered as non-fatty fish, since the fat content

Sundried and osmo-air-dried samples had the highest and the lowest water contents (35.4 and 27.1%, respectively) The water content was

on the water content of the final dried samples Water con-tent of commercial dried shark was significantly higher than all shark samples dried in this study, except those sun-dried The protein content of dried shark samples ranged

(db) for sundried samples The drying method and the use of salt (osmotic treatment) had no significant

sam-ples Ash content of dried shark was not affected by the drying method or application of an osmotic treatment and ranged between 4.62% (db) for sundried samples and 5.01% (db) for air-dried samples

Microbiological Quality The effect of different drying techniques on the micro-flora present on the fresh shark meat samples is shown in Table 2 The data are expressed as the ratio of the count

on newly processed fish (L) to the count on fresh fish (Lo), (Log L=Lo) The microbial log counts of fresh shark meat were APC 4.20, Staphylococcus spp 3.02; and molds

techniques varied in their lethality to the microflora

TABLE 1 Chemical composition of fresh and dried shark meat

a

Dry basis (g=100 g solids)

Note: Values in brackets are the standard deviations

Means with the same column with different letters were significantly different (p< 0.05)

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Staphylococcus spp compared to sundried samples In

addition, osmotic treatment of shark meat samples prior

to drying also significantly lowered the staphylococci and

aerobic plate counts of the dried samples A decrease in

the number of molds was also seen when samples were

air dried; however, in contrast, the level of mold

contami-nation increased when the samples were dried in the sun

Drying is the most commonly selected process for

The presence of Staphylococcus spp in food is used as

The count of Staphylococcus spp in dried shark meat

sam-ples used in the present study is shown in Table 3 The data

indicated that the method of drying significantly affected

the number of Staphylococcus spp with lower numbers

being recovered from air-dried shark samples In addition,

Staphylococcus spp.; the lowest values were observed for

resistant to sun drying; their numbers were significantly higher in sundried samples when compared to air-dried samples Many Staphylococcus spp are enterotoxigenic and it has been estimated that the minimum number of cells required to produce sufficient enterotoxin to induce

can multiply to an extremely high number on meat pro-ducts without producing significant changes in color, odor,

meat; they also detected enterotoxin

To simulate the normal use of the product, the micro-biological analysis was repeated after the dried samples had been stored for two months at room temperature (Table 3) In general, the level of microbial contamination increased during storage; only the counts of mold on sam-ples that had been air dried demonstrated a decrease in numbers Commercial dried shark meat samples had sig-nificantly higher aerobic bacterial and staphylococci counts (Table 3) This could be explained by the higher moisture level in these samples, which has been reported to be the most important factors influencing the microbial load of

between aerobic plate counts and the water content of the dried shark meat (Fig 4): the higher the moisture content, the higher the total aerobic count However, other factors such as salting, size of meat samples, temperature, humidity, and sunlight intensity during drying can all influence the rate at which water activity declines and, hence, microbial growth

Mold counts in the commercial samples were also significantly higher than the other dried samples Identifi-cation studies on molds isolated in the current study suggested that Penicillium and Aspergillus spp were the predominant species on dried shark meat samples More

shark were Aspergillus spp All molds isolated from air dried samples were Penicillium spp Sundried samples

TABLE 2 Effect of different drying processes on the microflora of

shark meat samples expressed as the ratio of log count

immediately after processing to the count on the fresh meat

immediately before drying

L is the count immediately after processing and Lo is the count

of fresh fish samples immediately prior to the drying process

Ratios greater than 1 indicate that the count has increased; ratios

below 1 indicate a decrease in the count

TABLE 3 Microbial analysis of shark meat dried by different methods and fresh samples

Sample

After drying (L)

After storage

After drying (L)

After storage

After drying (L)

After storage

Means within the same column with different letters are significantly different ( p< 0.05) Five samples in duplicate ND means not detected NA means data not available

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contained about 74 and 26% of molds belonging to

Penicil-lium and Aspergillus spp., respectively More than 90% of

molds isolated from osmotic-treated sundried shark meat

were Aspergillus spp Mold species of Penicillium,

Aspergil-lus, and Cladosporium have been shown to be among the

pro-duced by molds belonging mainly to the Penicillium and

Aspergillus genera Foods contaminated with mycotoxins

may cause serious health problems when consumed

Color Measurements

The effect of drying method and osmotic treatment on

of fresh shark meat and the different dried shark samples

Yellowness of the shark meat was significantly affected

being determined for air-dried samples The redness of

dried shark meat was significantly lower than fresh meat,

suggesting more extensive degradation of fish proteins that

contribute to the color of fish Color changes are related to

the degree of protein structural changes, which cause a difference in the light-scattering properties of the surface

to the color of muscle, the color being dependent on both

easily during bleeding of the fish, while myoglobin is

addition, moisture content may affect the color of the dried products In this study, the maximum variation in water content between samples is 8%; however, it is expected that different drying methods will result in different levels of moisture content During the handling and storage of fish,

a number of biochemical, chemical, and microbiological

Disco-loration of tuna during frozen storage is caused by the for-mation of metmyoglobin, as has been reported by

factors, such as pH, temperature, ionic strength, and

NaCl solution significantly affected the lightness of shark meat samples Osmotic treatment enhances the removal

of heme proteins from shark fish meat, leading to increased whiteness of the flesh However, heme proteins become less

myo-globin removal by NaCl solution and distilled water could result in a lower redness of washed mince

Rehydration Ratio The effects of different drying methods on the rehydra-tion ratios of dried shark meat samples are illustrated in

with significantly higher rehydration values for air-dried samples Osmotic dehydration significantly affected the rehydration ratios of sundried samples Rehydration ratio values of commercial dried shark meat samples were sig-nificantly lower when compared to other dried shark sam-ples The basic objective in drying food products is the removal of water from the solids, up to a certain level, at which microbial spoilage is minimized Most dehydrated

FIG 4 The relationship between the moisture content and aerobic plate

count of dried shark meat samples.

TABLE 4 Colour parameter estimate of fresh and dried shark meat

samples

Means within the same column with different letters were

significantly different ( p< 0.05) Means are of five samples in

duplicate

TABLE 5 Rehydration ratios of dried shark meat samples

Means within the same column with different letters were significantly different (p< 0.05) Means are of five samples in duplicate

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products are rehydrated before use Rehydration can be

considered as a measure of the injury to the material caused

Variations in rehydration ratio values between samples

from different drying methods revealed a degree of

reduc-ing space between both groups of muscle fibers and

indi-vidual fibers as well as by a progressive reduction in

was conducted for the final dried fish; thus, the rehydration

is a combined effect of osmotic followed by air or sun

dry-ing It would be interesting to separate these two processes

to study the rehydration in a future study The rehydration

ratio had a correlation with the juiciness of food during

consumption, which might affect the acceptability of such

products by the consumer Rehydration of dried tissues is

composed of three simultaneous processes: the imbibition

of water into dried material, the swelling, and the leaching

vol-ume changes (swelling) of biological materials are often

proportional to the amount of absorbed water Fan

sorp-tion equalled the volume of imbibed water It is generally

accepted that the degree of rehydration is dependent on

the degree of cellular and structural disruption

CONCLUSION

This study showed that dry salting was faster than brine

salting in removing water during the same salting period

However, this trend is inverted during drying and both

methods led to the same water content at the end of the

drying process Moisture sorption isotherms showed that

addition of salt prior to sun or air drying gave lower

equi-librium moisture contents at the same water activity levels

Salting and method of drying had a significant effect on the

microbial load Lower total aerobic and staphylococci

counts were obtained for osmo-air-dried samples Molds

grew on all samples during storage at room temperature

Method of drying had an effect on the color and

air drying could be recommended in Uwal drying Brine

salting at 27% could be considered the best condition for

uniform water loss

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