Table I-l. — Organoleptic evaluation of frozen-stored blue crab meat. — Con, 



^ "Bag" refers to a polyethylene bag without vacuum while "V.P." refers to a three-ply laminate package heat-sealed 

 while under vacuum. 



" The rating system is outlined in Figure 1-4. Based on 23 separate evaluations (295 individual ratings), the panel's 

 average rating for overall taste was 6.8 and its range was 6.4 to 7.4 for fresh crab meat. 



' Samples obtained from crabs caught near the Virginia coast (high-salinity water). Other samples from crabs caught 

 in the Chesapeake Bay (low-salinity water). 



' Sample thawed by microwave energy instead of ambient conditions for the organoleptic evaluation. 



' Crab meat placed in package before freezing in still air at —20° F. 



smaller quality drop during storage when com- 

 pared with crab meat which was packed in 

 unsealed but tightly closed polyethylene bags. 

 This indicates that the quality changes of blue 

 crab meat during frozen storage are caused 

 primarily by oxidation effects. At — 20° F 

 storage temperature, these oxidative changes 

 occurred at a much slower pace. Nevertheless, 

 even at — 20° F there was a noticeable quality 

 difference between the vacuum-packed samples 

 and the samples packed in unsealed polyethyl- 

 ene bags. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



John J. Powell and George M. Knobl, Na- 

 tional Marine Fisheries Service, College Park, 

 Md., provided facilities for part of the exper- 

 imental work and shipped crab meat samples 

 to FMC Laboratories during this investigation. 



Financial support was received from the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service under con- 

 tract number 14-17-0007-968. 



LITERATURE CITED 



AMERINE, M. A., R. M. PANGBORN, and E. B. 

 ROESSLER. 



1965. Principles of sensory evaluation of food. 

 Academic Press, New York, N.Y., 602 p. 

 ANDERSON, K., and C. E. DANIELSON. 



1961. Storage changes in frozen fish : A compar- 

 ison of objective and subjective tests. Food 

 Technol. 15(2): 55-57. 

 BARNETT, H. J., R. W. NELSON, and J. A. DASSOW. 

 1967. Technological studies of Dungeness crab 

 processing. Part 3 — Laboratory experiments in 

 the control of drain time. U.S. Fish Wildl. 

 Serv., Fish. Ind. Res. 3(4) : 11-17. 

 BURNETT, J. L. 



1965. Ammonia as an inde.x of decomposition in 

 crabmeat. J. Ass. Offic. Agr. Chem. 48(3) : 624- 

 627. 

 BYRD, G. C. 



1951. Method of keeping the meat of shellfish in 

 a fresh condition. U.S. Patent 2,546,428. 

 COLLINS, J., and R. L. BROWN. 



1965. Frozen king crab (Paralithodes camtschat- 

 ica) meat: Effect of processing conditions on 

 fluids freed upon thawing. U.S. Fish. Wildl. 

 Serv., Fish. Ind. Res. 2(4): 45-53. 



11 



