Effects of salt and temperature on proteolysis during ripening of Iberian ham

Fifty-five hams from Iberian pigs were processed using two different dry-curing techniques, traditional and modern. Salt content, non-protein nitrogen and its fractions (peptide, amino acid and volatile basic nitrogen) from Biceps femoris muscles were quantified. The existence of an overlapping effect of both temperature and salt content on the general nonprotein nitrogen production was observed. The most intense proteolytic breakdown took place when higher temperatures were reached during the drying stage. The difference in salt concentration seems to contribute to generating different quantities in the non-protein nitrogen fractions. The inclusion at the end of the cellar stage of a stuffing period would permit increasing the accumulation of free amino acid in high salted hams. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.