ABSTRACT
While beef carcasses are usually chilled by using air, spray chilling systems may also be applied (Brown and James, 1992; Brown et al., 1993) and have been used in the initial stages of beef carcass refrigeration in the United States since the 1980s. Applying water to the carcasses substantially increases the rate of carcass temperature decline, especially on the surface, as evaporation increases the rates of heat transfer (Jones and Robertson, 1988; Lee et al., 1990; James, 1996). Spray chilling also prevents carcass shrinkage as the water applied replaces water lost through evaporation (Gigiel et al., 1989). In contrast postmortem shrinkage of up to 2% has been reported during the initial 24 h of conventional air chilling of beef carcasses (Greer and Jones, 1997). This advantage may, however, be lost as there is some evidence of increased purge loss from spray-chilled beef sides after 15 days of vacuum-pack storage (Allen et al., 1987).
