LAUSR

BACKGROUND Surimi is produced from the various sequences of filleting, deboning, washing, dehydrating, blending with cryprotectant, and freezing. Deboning, after which fish flesh is minced and separated from bone, skin, etc., is a vital step in the surimi production. In this study, effects of repeated deboning on yield, structure, composition, and gelling properties of silver carp surimi were investigated. RESULTS Surimi yield increased rapidly from 10% to 23% as the cycle of repeated deboning was increased from 1 to 3, and then slowly increased up to 26%. As the cycle increased, cellular structure and ultrastructure of muscle fibers progressively fractured. Contents of fat, cathepsins, heme proteins, and transglutaminase of surimi obviously increased and then decreased. Three-dimensional network of surimi gel without setting (NS gel) became more porous with the increase of cycle. It became more compact, and then turned to aggregated forms with lower homogeneity, for the surimi gel with setting (WS gel). Correspondently, the NS gel textural values gradually decreased with the cycle, while the WS gel textural values increased up to 3 cycles and then decreased. Regardless of setting, whiteness of surimi gels decreased and then increased with the cycle. CONCLUSION Our results suggested that structure and compositions of surimi changed with the cycle of repeated deboning, which affected gelling properties of surimi. It is recommended to debone 3 or 4 cycles in silver carp surimi production. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.