Preliminary Screening And Process Standardization of Edible Sausage casing From Fish Viscera

Abstract- The study entitled “Preliminary screening and process standardization of edible sausage casing from fish viscera” was undertaken with the following objectives.: screening of various fish gut and air bladder as a source for edible sausage casing, process standardization of edible sausage casing from selected fish viscera, sensory, physical, biochemical, and microbiological evaluation of prepared sausages using the selected fish viscera and comparison of the quality of the fish sausages prepared using edible fish casings to that of goat casing.
Lizard fish (Saurida tumbil) which is considered to be of low market value fish due to its appearance was selected for the mince. However, the muscle of lizardfish exhibits high gel-forming ability, especially in fresh fish and the white fleshed lizard fish is less prone to oxidation and hence used for the study. The fishes selected for casing were lizard fish (Saurida tumbil), skip jack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis), rohu (Labeo rohitha), bassa fish (Pangasius spp) and spotted seer fish (Scombromorous spp).
Fish viscera from different fishes were treated in 1 per cent, 2 per cent and 3 per cent salt solution at 4⁰C for three days prior to processing in order to reduce microorganisms present in the viscera (gut and air bladder). The best treatment in terms of microbial load by the total plate count method was 2 per cent and it was chosen for stuffing the mince. Fish sausages were prepared using different fish viscera by a standard procedure and then preheated at a temperature of 70⁰C for 10 to 15minutes for maintaining the texture of casing. The best casing was selected by sensory analysis conductedby a panel of ten judges. Lizard fish gut was selected as the best for sausage casing.
The selected fish sausage casing was compared with that of animal casing using a texture analyzer and the result was analysed using‘t’ test. The result showed that there is a significant difference in the textural qualities over the animal casing except springiness and cohesiveness. The selected sausages were stored for a period 60 days under frozen condition. All the quality parameters like PH, peroxide value, free fatty acid, total volatile base nitrogen, tri methyl amine and total plate count were analysed and a gradual increase in all the parameters were observed as storage proceeds. But all the observations were found within the acceptable limit excluding PH during the storage period and after 54 days the overall acceptance in sensory parameters was found to be reduced.