Oxidative stability and sensory attributes of prerigor cooked beef steak

Beef sirloin tip steaks from 12 steer carcasses were cooked prerigor and postrigor using three heating methods and stored at 4°C or -20°C. Prerigor cooked steak had lower cook loss, higher pH, higher shear force, and sensory hardness than postrigor cooked steak. Conventional oven cooking produced the lowest cook loss for prerigor steak. Prerigor cooked steak had lower thiobarbituric acid value than postrigor cooked samples after 2 wks at 4°C or 3 mo at -20°C. Sensory warmed-over flavor intensity scores were low and showed no differences between prerigor and postrigor cooked steaks for refrigerated or frozen samples.