The effect of reheating on shelf life of Unrefrigerated cooked prerigor beef dipped in Gut content

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the microbial quality and shelf stability at 22°C of prerigor 
beef samples deliberately contaminated by dipping in gut content, followed by aerobic packaging 
in oriented polypropylene bags and subjected to different cooking and reheating procedures. 
Reheating the cooked packaged samples after initial storage periods of 4, 10 or 24 hrs did not 
improve the shelf life of the products. The samples cooked at 75°C internal temperature for 30 
min reached high levels of mean aerobic plate count APCs (Log 10/g) by day 7 of storage 
irrespective of the reheating time. The cooking procedure, 100°C for 40 min, followed by 
reheating after 4 to 24 hrs of initial storage gave inconsistent results especially by day 7 of 
storage. By day 14 of storage at 3°C or at 22°C, all the samples reached high levels of mean 
APCs (Logio/g) regardless of the cooking and reheating procedures.