Rodrigues, SandraVasconcelos, LiaPereira, EtelvinaLeite, AnaFerreira, Iasmin da SilvaTeixeira, AlfredoÁlvarez-Rodríguez, JavierArgemí-Armengol, Immaculada2023-02-282023-02-282022Rodrigues, Sandra; Vasconcelos, Lia Inês Machado; Pereira, Etelvina; Leite, Ana; Ferreira, Iasmin da Silva; Teixeira, Alfredo; Álvarez-Rodríguez, J.; Argemi-Armengol, Imma (2022). Effect of gender, castration, and diet on sensory characteristics of pork dry cured loins. In 73rd Annual Meeting of the European Federation of Animal Science. Porto978-90-8686-385-3978-90-8686-937-41382-6077http://hdl.handle.net/10198/27282The sensory characteristics from pork dry-cured loins from immunocastrated females (F), surgically castrated males (CM), immunocastrated males (IM), fed with peas (P), or soybean meal (S) as the main dietary source of crude protein, were compared. The pigs were Duroc × Berkshire crossbreds slaughtered at 140 kg of body weight. Half loins were spiced and cured for 11 weeks (3 replicates per group). Twenty-two qualitative and quantitative appearance, odor, texture, and taste attributes were evaluated by a trained taste panel (n=8 people). All treatments were evaluated in duplicate in each of 3 sessions. Data were submitted to a non-parametric ANOVA, and pairwise comparisons were made using the Friedman test for related samples with SPSS. Results showed significant differences between fat colour from FS and IMS dry-cured loins. The highest differences were found in texture attributes, hardness, and juiciness. Gender, castration method, and feed influenced dry-cured loins hardness. CMS loins were significantly less hard than IMS and FS, and CMP. IMP loins were less hard than IMS. Juiciness was higher in IMS than IMP. About chewiness, pairwise comparisons indicated no significant differences between samples. IMP dry-cured loins were considered bitter than CMP. Only a small amount of sexual odour was detected by panellists, and no significant differences were found among the studied samples. Thus, immunocastration did not compromise the boar taint scoring and may be a good alternative to supply high quality meat products.engPork dry-cured loinsResearch Subject Categories::TECHNOLOGY::Chemical engineering::Food technologyconference object10.3920/978-90-8686-937-4