Physicochemical attributes, oxidative stability, and microbial profile of boneless sirloin and bone-in T-bone steaks from Hanwoo steer with reference to dry-aging.

We investigated the comparative physicochemical attributes, oxidative stability, and microbial characteristics of 28 days dry-aged meat in between boneless sirloin () and bone-in T-bone steaks () muscles from Korean Native Hanwoo Steer (KNHS). Results reveal that regardless of the muscles, dry-aging increased protein content and water-holding capacity (WHC) ( < 0.05). Meat from -aged muscle led to darker meat with higher pH values than un-aged meat ( < 0.05). However, fat content, CIE a*, and CIE b* remained unchanged in both muscles at aging. At aged meat, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) values from bone-in muscle was 2.5-fold higher than boneless muscle ( < 0.05). Dry-aging led to an increase in the contents of total unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs), monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), and UFA/saturated fatty acids (SFA) in both muscles ( < 0.05). Furthermore, aged muscle concentrated with olic acid (C18:1) compared to aged muscle. Irrespective of the muscles, dry-aging enhanced the total free amino acids (FAAs) as well as tasty, and bitter amino acid contents whereas decreased the tasty/bitter amino acids ( < 0.05). Aromatic amino acid, tryptophan that converted to serotonin was 2-fold higher in boneless muscle than bone-in muscle at pre and post aging processes ( < 0.05). Aged muscle increased total bacteria ( < 0.05) while no . was detected in both muscles. Taken together, our study confirms that 28 days dry-aging profiling the quality characteristics of boneless sirloin () and bone-in T-bone steaks () distinctly while aged steak performs better owing to oxidative stability and functional compounds than aged steak.