How to maintain colour and taste of packaged dry cured sausages
Most of Norwegian dry cured sausages are sliced and packaged in modified atmospheres. However, during packaging operations it is unavoidable that some air with residual oxygen (O2) is incorporated. When transparent packages are illuminated, the slices of sausages can become discoloured.
Nofima has made designed experiments to find how much residual O2 is tolerable without the occurrence of discoloration. Results indicate that the limit for residual O2 to avoid discoloration is max. 0.3–0.4%, often lower in packages at 4 than 20ºC. The discoloration of dry cured sausages is irreversible; a gray/brown sausage never will turn back to red again (News Item Nofima, 23 November 2017).
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