ABSTRACT
Pastirma, a popular dry-cured beef product made from whole muscle, can be considered an intermediate moisture food (Gök and others 2008). Several whole meat-dried products such as ham, bacon, corned beef, BündnerŽeisch, and pastrami are produced all over the world. Pastirma is generally produced from whole muscles that are obtained from certain parts of cow and water buffalo carcasses (Aktas¸ and Gürses 2005). In order to produce pastirma, all the exterior fat and connective tissue are removed from the meat, and then curing, drying, pressing, and coating the resultant meat with çemen paste processes are applied (Aksu and Kaya 2002a). Although pastirma is de‘ned as cured and dried meat product, partial fermentation takes place during the production step thanks to natural microbial Žora (Katsaras and others 1996; Aksu and Kaya 2001a).
