winding down

As a part of my coursework this final semester I had the opportunity to develop a processed meats product.  I took a similar class at Iowa State, and appreciated the course for teaching the science behind product development and eventually providing us the opportunity to apply what we learned in the classroom.  Throughout this semester we made a wide variety of products: franks, brats, hams, snack sticks, summer sausage, and bologna.  Out of all the products we made I enjoyed the brats the most and bologna the least.  There is just something about it I don't like.  Maybe it is the fact that my sister Holly used to eat "bologna rollups": a rolled up piece of bologna with peanut butter in the middle.  These disturbing concoctions were an after school treat or sometimes lunch for the kiddo. For me they were just gross, which is really saying something since I have a deep abiding love for peanut butter....just not with meat.


After spending weeks in the meat lab learning how to use choppers, grinders, stuffers, mixers, injectors, macerators, tastifiers (ok, that is not really a piece of equipment, but it should be!) we got a chance to get our hands dirty developing a new product. Originally I had planned to make a Cajun Chicken Snack Stick, because I like Cajun food, chicken and snack sticks.  But as the semester progressed, and I tasted my first batch hot and fell in love, I decided to make a Cajun Chicken Sausage.  And let me tell you, is it ever delicious!  Aside from be delectable, the sausage was very easy to make.  In fact, if I get a Kitchen Aide mixer (hint hint) as wedding/bridal shower gift I would be able to make this specialty in my own home! 


I chose to utilize chicken thigh meat for my meat block.  Not only are thighs more flavorful than breast meat, but they also contain a higher proportion of fat (a partial reason for the increased flavor).  After removing the skin, the lean was placed in a grinder using a 1/4" grinding plate.  I then moved the ground product to a mixer, or for smaller batches I mixed the product by hand.  After weighing out the amounts for my "secret" Cajun spice blend, it was added to the mixer and the meat was mixed with the spices for 5 minutes.  I utilized Nitrite and Sodium Erythorbate in the production of my sausage to impart cured color, flavor, and aroma.  These ingredients also have the ability to lethalize Listeria monocytogenes and Clostridium Botulinum--which in producing a safe and quality product are large concerns.  


After the product was thoroughly mixed and adequate protein extraction had occurred the product was stuffed into natural casings.  The natural casings I utilized were derived from the mucosal layer of pig intestines.  Now I realize that sounds utterly disturbing (kind of like the bologna roll up) but I can assure you these casings are safe from microbial contamination, off-flavors, etc.  In fact natural casings are highly sought after in the marketplace.  Natural casings provide a unique curved shape to product and offer a distinguished snap when consuming the product.  I then linked each sausage and hung them on a rack to be cooked.  I wanted to offer a pre-cooked product to provide further safety from microbial contamination. 


I made the final batch of my product this Tuesday, all I have left is to design a label and acquire nutrition facts from the Department of Food Science.  I have decided to name my company Iowa Indulgences because I am from Iowa and who wouldn't want to indulge in a Cajun Chicken Sausage.....my point exactly.  Now that I have my company name down, I need to come up with a saucy name for my product, "Iowa Indulgences Cajun Chicken Sausage" just doesn't do it for me.  We will have the opportunity to serve our products to faculty and staff from the department next week.  Hope they like it as much as I do-they won't even need ketchup for it!


Before that time I need to get a final product report, final product presentation, and final product poster completed.  Yowzers!  It is crazy to think I have 2 full weeks of class, and finals week remaining in my graduate student career.  The thought of having less than a month of graduate school makes me extremely excited, but at the same time fills me with fear.  This past year and eight months have absolutely flown by, which again is good and bad.  Good because I have enjoyed my time here at UNL: I learned lots, made professional networks, and some amazing friends!  Bad because I have realized how fast time really does pass, and from what I have been told, it only goes faster from here on out!  Which in these next three weeks I do not need to happen!  

the swing of things

This week marks the third and final 4-day work week for me for the month of January.  And I must admit it terrifies me to think how long next week is going to drag on!  Aside from next week being a normal 5-day working week, I am starting taste panel training sessions for the final part of my thesis project.  Although this is exciting, I am also anxious about all the time and effort required in organizing a taste panel.  Nonetheless, I think this panel will be the best way to get back into the swing of things.

Taste panels are commonly used in meat science research to assess the palatability of new products, cooking methods, or aging techniques.  In my case, this taste panel will assess the palatability-or tasting/eating quality-of the extended sirloin cap. Taste panels are a means to detect differences in product tenderness, juiciness, flavor, connective tissue content, off-flavor, visual appearance, and aroma.  It is the true way to determine the way a product will be perceived in the industry.

With that being said, there are two types of taste panels: consumer or trained.  Consumer panels are often conducted in retail or restaurant settings where consumers have little knowledge on product background, and the process of taste analysis.  Consumer panels provide insight to how the general population will receive the product and it's attributes, and often have a large sample population.  Because of this, sample variation is quite large and statistical significance may be difficult to achieve.  Consumer panels also take an immense amount of time and collaboration with grocery stores or restaurants to plan.  Incentives are often given to consumer taste panelists, such as coupons, to increase participation.

As you may have guessed, I will be conducting a trained taste panel session within the next few weeks.  Trained sessions include taste panelists that have been educated on the attributes of a particular product.  These panelists are typically trained using product that is extremely tough, tender, juicy, etc. in order to create a organoleptic scale upon which they will later "grade" a product's acceptability. In my case, panelists will be trained on the extended sirloin cap quality.  We will utilize product from the anterior and posterior ends of the primal, where a true tenderness gradient exists.  Our primary goal for this taste panel is to determine the tenderness differences of the cap depending upon location. For that reason, each steak's location from it's primal will be maintained throughout the panel. Panelists will be asked to rate the product on a hedonic scale (1-8) on the product's apparent juiciness, tenderness, off-flavor, and connective tissue content.  Taste panel sessions will be held twice a day and will consist of 6 panelist.  These panelist will be compensated with a paycheck for their participation and offered chocolate each day--sounds like the real deal, right?!  I can say that I am jealous! haha

All things considered, taste panels are a very important part of what we do as meat scientist.  If we develop a product that consumers find tough, or dry, we need to reconsider how the product was made.  It truly is our way of creating and developing an acceptable and quality product for consumers!