Hot smoked Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus) Effects of catch season, frozen storage time of raw material (fillets) and chilled storage time of finished product, on colour and sensory characteristics

Summary

Two trials have been carried out with hot-smoking of Atlantic mackerel in order to investigate the effect of different raw material (fillets), on product quality and shelf-life. Fillets produced from trawled, Icelandic mackerel, caught in September, from Norwegian purse-seine caught fish from November, and from trawled mackerel caught in January, were hot smoked, vacuum packaged and stored at 4 °C. After one and seven weeks, the colour was measured instrumentally, and the samples were evaluated by a sensory panel. The results indicate that neither catch season, nor frozen storage time significantly affected the processing yield. The colour of the smoked fillets changed during storage; both the redness and the yellowness decreased over the 6 week storage period, as did the lightness. In the trial, frozen fillets stored for more than eight months were used. None of the smoked samples, however, were characterised as rancid or oxidized. The products from the three different catch-months were, in fact, only significantly different with respect to salty and acid taste. The results show that the smoking process to some degree evens out the differences in raw material freshness and composition.