Abstract: Pig crural meat,divided into 200±5g little cuts and frozen respectively at 4,12,24,48 h after slaughtered according to the experimental design at conventional freezing conditions,were thawed,minced and stored one week at 0 to 4℃. The cook loss,water holding capacity and pH were measured. Results showed that the cook loss and pH raise significantly but the water holding capacity descends significantly during storage,suggesting that storage,especially long time storage,do harm to the ground meat. Freezing meat at 4 h and 12 h postmortem reduces the cook loss compared with that at 24 h and 48 h postmortem,and the water holding capacity of samples from meat frozen at 12 h postmortem is higher than others,concluding that frozen meat at 12 h postmortem is a suitable material for ground meat.

Key words: frozen meat, ground meat, cook loss, water holding capacity, pH