Both loins (M. longissimus lumborum) from12 steers (around 2 years
old; average carcass weight 300 kg ± 16 kg s.d.) were obtained from a
local meat processing plant at 24 h post mortem, vacuum packaged,
placed on ice, and transported to AgResearch Ruakura campus. On the
same day, once the pHwasmeasured, each loinwas cut in half to obtain
4 loin sections and randomly assigned to four different ageing (at
−1.5 °C)/freezing (at −18 °C) combinations (Fig. 1); 1) ageing for
4 weeks (A4; aged only, never-frozen control), 2) ageing for 4 weeks
and then frozen for 2weeks (A4F2), 3) ageing for 3weeks and then frozen
for 2 weeks (A3F2) and 4) frozen at 1 day post mortem and stored
for 2 weeks (F2; non-aged control). Prior to freezing, the loin sections
assigned for freezing,were halved (average 0.98 kg per section; approximately
7 cm × 16 cm × 8 cm (height ×width × length)), vacuumpackaged
and assigned to either fast or slow freezing treatments