Effects of Storage Method on the Quality of Processed Sea Cucumbers (Apostichopus japonicus)

This research aimed to establish an effective storage method to maintain the quality of processed sea cucumbers. In this study, sea cucumbers were stored by various methods including the storage of live sea cucumbers (seawater treatment, oxygen treatment, and ascorbic acid treatment) and the storage of dead sea cucumbers (frozen treatment). The sea cucumber quality was monitored after storage and boiling. The weightlessness rate and WHC of the frozen group increased to 86.96% +/- 0.83% and 93.29% +/- 0.32%, respectively. Frozen sea cucumbers shrunk with the meat's textural properties deteriorated. During the live sea cucumber storage, the tissue protein degraded from day 3 to day 7 which led to the promotion of TVB-N. Among these, the oxygen group showed the smallest TVB-N increase from day 0 (3.78 +/- 0.60 mg 100 g(-1)) to day 7 (10.40 +/- 0.12 mg 100 g(-1)). The oxygen group exhibited the most moderate change in weightlessness rate (4.24% +/- 0.45%) and the most moderate texture parameters decline, such as the hardness of 32.52%, chewiness of 78.98 +/- 5.10 N, and adhesion of 0.84 +/- 0.00. The oxygen method showed the best condition of sea cucumber after 5 days of storage.

Automated summary

The research aimed to find an effective storage method to maintain the quality of processed sea cucumbers. Various methods were tested, including freezing and oxygen treatment, and it was found that these methods had a minimal impact on the quality of the sea cucumbers, with the frozen and oxygen groups showing the best results after storage.