Abstract: Different thawing temperature differences affect the thawing quality of frozen meat, thus impacting food safety. The effects of four thawing temperature differences on volatile base nitrogen and microbial indexes of frozen beef were studied, and an ideal thawing method was selected and optimized to help the common scenes of family cooking. Four thawing temperature difference groups were air thawing group, high temperature with low humidity thawing group, cold storage thawing group, and low temperature with high humidity thawing group. The air thawing group had the fastest thawing rate, the highest TVB-N value and total number of colonies. The thawing rate of the low temperature with high humidity thawing group was lower than that of the air thawing group, higher than that of the other two groups, exhibiting the lowest TVB-N value and total number of colonies. Optimization of the low temperature with high humidity thawing group resulted in a 35 min thawing time with the TVB-N value and the total number of colonies reaching 11.92 mg/100 g and 4.47 lg(CFU/g), respectively. This demonstrates that the optimized thawing scheme can significantly inhibit microbial contamination during beef thawing and storage, enhancing the edible quality and safety.

Key words: Thawing temperature difference, Volatile base nitrogen, Total number of colonies, Frozen meat