Abstract: China possesses abundant resources of mutton sheep breeds. The nutritional and physicochemical qualities of mutton vary different among breeds and the quality of raw mutton determines the quality of smoked mutton. The differences in physicochemical and nutritional characteristics of longissimus dorsi muscles from different sheep breeds were investigated, and we also evaluated their suitability for producing smoked mutton. Seven quality indicators of raw mutton (water content, protein content, fat content, pH24 h, L*, a* and b* values) and nine quality indicators of smoked mutton (smoking loss, shear force, hardness, elasticity, cohesiveness, chewiness, epidermis L*, a* and b* values) were analyzed. The relationship between the qualities of raw meat and smoked meat was analyzed by multivariate statistical analysis. The results showed that water content was significantly positively correlated with smoking loss (P < 0.01), and protein content was significantly positively correlated with cohesiveness (P < 0.01), while fat content was significantly negatively correlated with elasticity (P < 0.01). Protein content (A), fat content (B), pH24 h (C), and b* (D) were chosen key variables to evaluate the suitability of mutton longissimus dorsi for producing smoked mutton. As a result, a prediction model to estimate the overall quality (Y) of smoked mutton was fitted as follows: Y = 0.190 9A + 0.355 5B + 0.234 3C + 0.219 3D.

Key words: mutton, smoked meat, breed, quality evaluation, suitability for producing