Application of organic acid salts and high-pressure treatments to improve the preservation of blood sausage.

Blood sausages are traditional products in many parts of the world. In most cases, a very short shelf-life limits their consumption to the areas in which they are produced. In this work, different mild preservation methods were applied to Morcilla de Burgos, a Spanish blood sausage, consisting of a range of organic acid salts (OAS) and high-pressure processing (HPP), with the aim of increasing its shelf-life. In the first experiment, three batches of morcillas were produced using three different commercial OAS-PL (3% potassium lactate), PL+SL (3% potassium and sodium lactate) and PL+SD (2.5% potassium lactate and sodium diacetate)-together with a control batch and were stored under chill conditions (4 degrees C) for 35 days. In a further experiment, vacuum-packaged morcillas were treated at three different pressure levels-300, 500 and 600MPa-for 10min, and stored under chill conditions for 28 days. In both batches, a sensory difference test was performed on day 1 after treatment and the morcilla samples were subjected to microbiological and sensory analysis after each week in storage. The results suggest that, in both cases, an addition of PL+SL and the application of 600MPa for 10min increases the shelf-life of the morcillas by 15 days. Once again, it is evident that the initial opportunities for contamination play a very important role in improving the shelf-life of food products.