Re: CO gas treatment of Tuna loins and Tilapia fillets

From: Evert Liewes (evertliewes@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Feb 21 2002 - 09:35:13 PST

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    On the following internet pages you can find some general info on the use of
    oxygen in MAP gas mixtures for fish and red meat:

    http://www.aga.com/Web/Web2000/com/WPPcom.nsf/pages/FDB_FishMAPAX

    http://www3.airproducts.com/freshline/microbiology_of_map.html

    When oxygen is used to MAP packed fish you will not stabilise the increase
    in total bacteria count and the growth of entero's. They will do nearly as
    good as under normal atmospheric conditions! The presence of oxygen will
    however keep blood containing fish musculature nice red.

    As an oxygen containing gas mixture will only slowly penetrate into a thick
    piece of meat. Its was thought that the use of a cylindrical pressure
    container could help to do the job faster. The layers of the rack, being
    placed inside the container were filled with a single layers of fish fillets
    and left overnight at 5 bar pressure with pure oxygen. When meat was
    processed this way the red colour would remain for a considerable time. The
    colour would however fade and become brownish with time when exposed to
    normal air. This is not the case with CO treated fish.

    This may work for thick meat, but for tnin fish fillets the same effect
    could be reached more easily by packing them in MAP packs of single layered
    in bags with oxygen.

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Bob Collette" <bcollette@nfi.org>
    To: <evertliewes@hotmail.com>
    Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2002 3:50 PM
    Subject: RE: CO gas treatment of Tuna loins and Tilapia fillets

    Hello-

    Do you have any papers regarding this treatment/process?

    Thanks,
    Bob Collette

    Robert L. Collette

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Evert Liewes [mailto:evertliewes@hotmail.com]
    Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 2:12 AM
    To: seafood@ucdavis.edu
    Subject: Re: CO gas treatment of Tuna loins and Tilapia fillets

    An other way to maintain the colour in meat colour in meat and fish is
    packling it in MAP with a gas mixture containing up to 30% O2. With this
    method fish fillets having a red coloured musculus lateralis will keep
    them nice and red. Even white cod fillets will show up clearly visible
    blood vessels when packed this way.

    I have also experiented with fish fillets in a pressure chamber, which
    was intented for use with meat products. The product is exposed
    overnight to O2 gas under pressure were left overnight. This method is
    very elaborate and expensive. The result is the same as with a O2
    containing MAP packing.

    With oxygen the red fish parts will really become red and not pink like
    with CO.

    The use of O2 gas for packing of fish and meat is approved in the EU.



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