The estimation of consumer scores for lamb longissimus lumborum muscle juiciness using pressed juice percentage values

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of replication (r) on the pressed juice percentage (PJP) variation of lamb meat and the relationship between PJP and consumer sensory scores for juiciness, tenderness, flavour, and overall liking. Samples were collected from the right longissimus lumborum muscle of 50 lamb carcasses and analysed for PJP as well as eating quality scored by 64 untrained participants of consumer sensory panels. It was found that there was a 19.4 % reduction in variance from 3 additional replicates (r = 4) and there seems to be little practical advantage to exceeding this number of replicates when measuring PJP for lamb meat – except in instances where higher levels of precision are required. The relationship between PJP and lamb meat eating quality was found to be statistically insignificant, although all coefficients were positive; juiciness (0.62 ± 0.37; P = 0.105), tenderness (0.35 ± 0.52; P = 0.498), flavour (0.44 ± 0.34; P = 0.204), and overall liking (0.37 ± 0.41; P = 0.367). These findings will help to inform research into PJP as an objective measure for lamb meat juiciness and other eating quality traits.