Physicochemical Properties and Freshness of Spent Hen's Meat under Frozen or Refrigeration Conditions after Thawing

This study was conducted in order to investigate the effect of storage temperature abuse on the freshness of refrigerated and frozen spent hen's meat. After a room temperature storage condition, two different storage temperature were followed: refrigeration and frozen storage. All parts of the spent hen's meats were thawed at 4 d intervals up to 3 times (2, 6, and 10 d) for 24 h. The level of bacteria on the different parts of the refrigerated and frozen meats was higher than 6 Log CFU/g under the following storage conditions: refrigerated - breast, 12 h; leg, 6 h; wing, 12 h at the $1^{st}$ analysis, frozen - breast, 12 h at the $2^{nd}$ analysis; leg, 24 h at the $1^{st}$ analysis; wing, 12 h at the $1^{st}$ analysis. The pH value for the leg meat was higher than breast and wing meats. In the color measurements, under the room temperature storage condition, lightness and redness values decreased but the yellowness increased in refrigerated meats (p<0.05). The K-value regarding refrigerated leg meats exceeded 60%, which is the threshold value to evaluate the degree of freshness, during the $1^{st}$ analysis (p<0.05). The VBN value of refrigerated leg meat was the highest and reached up to 96.93 mg%. Thus, studies regarding the possible decline in quality according to the change of storage temperature could be used in order to establish a basic database for the quality control of spent hen meat being traded with other countries.