a 170° F water bath and kept there for 10 min 

 to raise the minimum internal temperature to 

 170° F (Byrd, 1951; Littleford, 1957). The 

 hot pouches were quickly cooled in a cold-water 

 bath and put into storage in a refrigerator at 

 34° F. 



Sterilization of blue crab meat. — Vacuum- 

 packed pouches (6.5 X 10 inches) containing 

 95 g of crab meat were brought into an auto- 

 clave and heated at 250° F under steam pres- 

 sure for 15 min. The pouches were cooled to 

 room temperature under pressure with cold 

 water. Then they were stored at 34° F. 



Freeze drying of blue crab meat. — Crab 

 meat samples were frozen by exposure to cold 

 air (—20° F) then freeze-dried at a vacuum 

 of less than 200 fj. and a maximum heating 

 temperature of 120° F. The freeze-dried 

 samples were packaged under vacuum in lam- 

 inated pouches. 



Methods of Packaging and of Storage 



Vacuum pouches. — All the heat-processed 

 and freeze-dried crab meat samples and some of 

 the frozen samples were packaged in pouches 

 of 6.5 X 10 inches made of laminated polyeth- 

 ylene-aluminum foil-mylar and heat-sealed 

 under a vacuum of 28 inches. 



Bags. — The rest of the frozen crab meat 

 samples were placed into double-wall polyeth- 

 ylene bags which are commonly used for stor- 

 age of food in household freezers. The bags 

 were wrapped with aluminum foil for mechan- 

 ical protection and as a protection against 

 "freezer burn" which is caused by a moisture 

 transport because of uneven temperature dis- 

 tribution inside the bag. An outside paper 

 bag was used to facilitate labeling. 



Storage conditions. — Most of the frozen 

 crab meat samples were stored at — 20° F 

 (± 2° F) or at 0° F ( ± 2° F) . A few samples 

 were stored on dry ice ( — 108° F) for com- 

 parison purposes. The pasteurized and steri- 

 lized samples were held at 34° F (±2° F) 

 while the freeze-dried samples were held at 

 ambient (room) temperature. 



Organoleptic Evaluation 



From an initial group of 24 persons, a taste 

 panel of 12 to 15 members was selected. Each 

 tester was asked to rate samples for appear- 

 ance, odor, texture, and overall taste on a 9- 

 point hedonic preference scale. For the flavor 

 evaluation, intensity scoring, and descriptive 

 evaluation were also used (Fig. 1-4) . To lessen 

 the effect of fatigue, only five samples were used 

 for each test. Two tests were performed per 

 day, one at about 11:30 AM and the other at 

 about 3:00 PM. 



Crab meat samples were prepared for these 

 evaluations by thawing in the package at 

 ambient (room) temperature for 45 to 60 min. 

 The pasteurized or sterilized samples were just 

 taken out of the pouch while the freeze-dried 

 samples were rehydrated for 25 min in water 

 at ambient (room) temperature and drained 

 afterwards. Samples were distributed into 1- 

 oz portion control cups and served to the mem- 

 bers of the taste panel. 



Fresh crab meat was used as a reference 

 sample for each panel session. It was shipped 

 in crushed ice by air freight from the East 

 Coast, stored at 34° F and used within 1 week. 

 It was served together with the other samples 

 being evaluated and was not designated as be- 

 ing "fresh." 



RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 



Evaluation of Taste-Panel Consistency 



Since fresh crab meat was used as an un- 

 known reference sample in each session, the 

 panel evaluated it a total of 23 times during an 

 8-month period. The total average ratings for 

 these fresh samples (based on 23 evaluations 

 or 295 individual ratings) were: appearance 

 = 6.6, odor = 6.5, texture — 6.6, overall taste 

 6.8, and degree of undesirable flavors = 1.5. 

 The ranges for these ratings were: appearance 

 = 5.5 to 7.4, odor = 5.7 to 7.9, texture = 5.9 

 to 7.5, overall taste = 6.4 to 7.4, and degree of 

 undesirable flavor = 1.1 to 1.8. 



A statistical analysis was made from the in- 

 dividual ratings for overall taste to assess the 

 effects of personal preference for crab meat and 

 individual sensitivity to different samples of 

 fresh crab meat on the results (Strasser, 1969) . 



