Optimization of sous vide cooking method and determination of shelf life in cooking turkey cutlet

In this thesis, turkey cutlet is cooked by Sous Vide technique with 9 different Sous Vide cooking temperature-time combinations (65°C, 70°C, 75°C - 20, 40, 60 min) and the effects of physicochemical, microbiological and sensory properties belonging to the turkey cutlet samples are determined. Also in the determined optimum cooking temperature-time combination the shelf-lives for the turkey cutlets in the temperatures of 4°C and 12°C are also detected. Based on the experimental analyzes it found that the cooking yield, moisture, a* and elasticity parameters decrease whereas the values of TBA, pH, hardness, toughness, cohesiveness and chewiness enhance with the increment in the cooking temperature. At the same temperature parameters, the cooking yield, moisture, L*, a*, toughness, adhesiveness and elasticity values decrease with the enhancement of the cooking time. It is observed from the microbiological analyses that the samples of cooked 65°C 20 minutes presence of Listeria spp. was observed, but in other samples analyzed microorganisms hasn't been detected. The experimental results observed from the sensory analyses demonstrate that the turkey cutlet to be cooked at the combinations of the low cooking temperature and large cooking time gets far higher grades from the panelists. According to these results the time temperature combination of 65°C-40 min determined as optimum. For the termination of the storage, sensory evaluation results have been taken as considering factor. As a result the shelf life of the samples stored at 4°C determined 28 days and the shelf life of the samples stored at 12°C determined 18 days.