Comparative effects of dry-aging and wet-aging on physicochemical properties and digestibility of Hanwoo beef

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of aging methods (AM) i.e. dry-aging (DA) and wet-aging (WA) on the physicochemical properties and in vitro digestibility of proteins in beef short loin. METHODS: Short loins (M. longissmus lumborum), were trimmed and boned-out on the fifth day postmortem, from a total of 18 Hanwoo, which were purchased from a commercial slaughterhouse. Short loins were separated randomly grouped into one of the three treatments: control, WA (1°C, 7 days), and DA (1°C, 0.5 m/s, 85% relative humidity [RH], 30 days). RESULTS: Dry-aged beef (DAB) exhibited higher pH, water holding capacity (WHC), myofibrillar fragmentation index (MFI), and digestibility, however lower lightness, redness, and yellowness values, cooking loss, and shear force (SF), than those of wet-aged beef (WAB) (p<0.05). The myosin light chain band intensity of DAB was higher than that of control and WAB in sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The in vitro digestibility of aged beef was highly (p<0.001) correlated to physicochemical properties except WHC. The correlation coefficient between AMs and WHC was higher than that between AM and SF (p<0.05) or MFI (p<0.001). A high correlation was observed between SF and MFI (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: Thus, we believe that DAB is more advantageous than WAB owing to its high digestibility and WHC and low SF.