A bacteriological study of ham souringMcBryde, Charles Neil
Science
A bacteriological study of ham souring
McBryde, Charles Neil
Ham -- Microbiology
With regard to the variation in the degree and the extent of the
souring exhibited by the individual hams in the two inoculated tierces,
where some of the hams showed pronounced souring throughout the body
and shank, while others which had been injected with the same amount of
culture showed only slight souring in the body, several factors must
be considered, viz: (1) Differences in the reaction of the meat of the
individual hams which may have exerted an influence on the growth of
the bacteria with which the hams were injected. (2) Variations in the
texture of the muscle fibers and connective tissue of the individual
hams, permitting in some cases a more rapid and thorough penetration of
the pickling fluids to the interior of the hams, whereby the inhibitory
effect of the sodium chlorid and the potassium nitrate on the bacteria
would come into play earlier. (3) Variations in pumping, whereby more
of the pickling solution was forced into some of the hams than into
others. Probably all three of these factors would have to be taken into
account in explaining the variation in the degree and extent of the
souring exhibited by the injected hams.
With regard to the souring of the bone marrow, we find that of nineteen
sour hams in tierce 1 eighteen showed sour marrows, while in tierce 3
nine sour hams showed seven sour marrows. The high proportion of marrow
sours is not surprising when it is recalled that of the nineteen sour
hams in tierce 1 the meat was markedly sour in sixteen, while of the
nine sour hams in tierce 3 the meat was markedly sour in five. In the
case of the four sour hams in tierce 3 which showed slight souring in
the body, two of these showed sour marrows, while in two the marrows
were sweet. In this experiment the percentage of sour hams showing sour
marrows corresponds with the percentage of marrow-sour hams found in
the packing house, where, as has been pointed out before, a ham which
is markedly sour in the body will practically always show sour marrow,
while in hams which show only slight souring in the body the marrow is
involved in about 50 per cent of the cases.
_Experiment II._
This experiment was essentially a repetition of Experiment I, but was
carried out at a different packing establishment and under somewhat
different conditions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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