Cooked pork sausages, approximately 500 ± 10 g for each treatment,
were purchased from Charoen Pokphand Foods PCL (Bangkok,
Thailand). The samples were given a 3 min dip treatment in the 2%
chitosan solution (CS); or the 2% chitosan solution incorporating 1.5%
clove oil (CS + CO). Then the samples were dried for 60 min in aseptic
laminar airflowconditions, and packed into PE ziplock bags holding 35 g
per bag. The control samples (without coatings)were treated following
the same procedure. The packed samples were kept in a refrigerator at
4 ± 2 °C for up to 25 days. Intermediate samples were taken randomly
every 5 days to evaluate physical, chemical,microbiological and sensory
properties. The optimal concentration of clove oil used was 1.5% by
volume, based on preliminary experiments including microbiological
analyses, physical analyses and sensory evaluations (Songsaeng,
2014). The sensory evaluations of the cooked pork sausage samples
were investigated for effects of chitosan-based coating at 2.0% v/v incorporatedwith
clove oil at 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5% v/v. The 1.5% v/v concentration
of clove oil was the best among these treatments, giving the highest
overall acceptability.