# Changes in Water Holding Capacity and Shear Force in Fallow Deer Muscles during Ageing  
[PERSON] 1  
Department of Meat Technology and Chemistry, Faculty of Food Sciences,  
University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Plac Cieszynski 1, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland  
Correspondence: [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
[PERSON]  
Department of Meat Technology and Chemistry, Faculty of Food Sciences,  
University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Plac Cieszynski 1, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland  
Correspondence: [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
Footnote 1: email: {today,t  
deer meat shows some advantages over farmed ones, including higher proportions of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) [3]. However, when the animals are harvested in forests and eviscerated under field conditions, the meat might show relatively high microbial contamination [8]. Therefore, postslaughter processing of farmed-raised cervids in meat processing plants is beneficial from a hygienic perspective, meat quality, and safety.  
The quality of fallow deer meat has been studied in terms of chemical composition, including fatty acid composition [9], the content of tocopherols, \(\beta\)-carotene and retinol [10], and minerals [11], in relation to living conditions (e.g., free range, organic, and conventional farming), sex, or body weight. However, no extensive studies on the water holding capacity (WHC) and water binding capacity (WBC) of fallow deer meat during ageing in relation to the tenderness of cooked meat are available. WHC is the ability of fresh meat to retain its own water during storage, transport and processing, including cutting, grinding, heating, etc. [12]. WHC is one of the most important factors, which affects the economic value and quality of meat, due to the fact that it has an impact on raw meat weight changes during transport and storage, drip and thawing loss, weight and volume losses during heating, and juiciness and tenderness of the meat [13]. It might be determined based on drip loss, purge loss, thawing and cooking losses, and free water content. The meat obtained from fallow deer carcasses might be used for culinary applications, as well as the production of meat products such as fermented sausages [14], dry-cured hams [15] and cooked hams and sausages. In all of these cases WHC plays an important role in shaping a product's quality and profitability of production. In turn, water binding capacity (WBC) is the ability of meat tissue to bind added water during meat processing in such operations as injection curing or tumbling in the production of cooked ham.  
Therefore, the present study was aimed at investigating the effect of ageing time on the hydration properties (WHC and WBC) of fallow deer muscle tissue of _semimembranosus_ and _longissimus thoracis ct humborn_ in relation to Warner-Bratzler shear force values, and cooking and volume losses of muscles subjected to cooking in water and roasted in dry air. The sampling times of 48 h, 168 h, and 288 h were chosen based on the following assumptions: at 48 h early post mortem changes in meat tissue have already occurred and rigor mortis has passed making the meat suitable for culinary purposes, whereas at 288 h meat is fully aged and of high quality, yet without any signs of deterioration or becoming stale. The timepoint of 168 h was chosen as the time between those two points to monitor the curse of post mortem changes and to assess if 168 h is enough to obtain good quality. A hypothesis that LTL and SM muscles need a similar time to tenderize was also tested.