Abstract: The quality of fresh Pseudosciaena crocea cultured in four different aquaculture modes, namely, raft cages, through-frame cages, deep-water net cages and deep-sea seine, and those cultured in deep-sea seine and stored under one of the two typical distribution conditions of chilling and freezing was comprehensively evaluated by measuring body size parameters, springiness, crude fat content, surface color (yellowness/blueness, b*), sensory evaluation score and total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) content, and their quality grading was performed according to the standard Rules for the Evaluation of High Quality Cultured Pseudosciaena crocea (T/CROAKER001–2018). The results showed that seine net cultured Pseudosciaena crocea had a higher rate of superior quality, which was close to that of wild Pseudosciaena crocea; during the circulation process, the quality of Pseudosciaena crocea from the ice platform (IP) group, thawing ice platform (TIP) group and frozen storage (FS) group gradually deteriorated, among which the TIP group had the fastest rate of quality deterioration. On the second day of storage, its freshness failed to reach the standard for superior quality, and its b* value fell to below 25 at 14 h. The quality of Pseudosciaena crocea from the FS group was judged to be superior on the 30th day of frozen storage, and on the 180th day, the springiness, TVB-N content and sensory score were close to the unacceptable end point. The overall quality evaluation showed that the superiority rate of deep-sea seine cultured Pseudosciaena crocea was 62.5%, while the quality of Pseudosciaena crocea from the IP and TIP groups could not be judged to be superior at the 3rd and 2nd day of storage, respectively, and the quality of Pseudosciaena crocea from the FS group could not be judged to be superior after 30 days of freezing. The results of this study can provide a reference for the quality control of cultured Pseudosciaena crocea during farming and postmortem storage.

Key words: Pseudosciaena crocea; aquaculture modes; circulation; quality characteristics