Moderate acidity favors salty meat product comrade, especially for the formation of color and its stability. Generally,, fresh meat is moderately acidic, pH 5.5 to - 6.3. It is known that moisture-binding and emulsifying capacity meat protein depends on the pH of the meat and improves with increasing it.
At pH 5,5-5,8, these figures are much lower than the 'pH 6.0-6.2.
To neutralize lactic acid in meat and increase the pH. to improve the moisture-binding and emulsifying capacity often added some alkali metal salts of phosphoric acid. Emulsifying salt meat industry did not use food acid, although it could affect the formation of color and its stability.
L Sair (U.S. patent number 2,992,116 on July 11, 1961, the patent owner-company «The Griffith Laboratories, Inc.») Found that the meat, which is emulsified or emulsified, you can add food ingredient. In the process of emulsifying the pH decreases. Such ingredient is glucono-b-lactone (GDL), which is easy, but slowly, is hydrolyzed to form gluconic acid. When you add the CEO in meat array to be emulsified, spontaneous hydrolytic acid formation is delayed so that the meat can emulsify a certain period of time and an emulsion of the same quality as the one without the addition of DL.
After the formation of the emulsion does not change the appearance of acid it because by the time the fat is ground to fine particles, which are protected by a layer of protein. For example, meat, containing a newly added GDL, and an array containing the equivalent amount of gluconic acid, after 20 minutes of emulsification give respectively good and bad emulsion, but after 3 hours after the formation of the emulsion both masses have the same pH and the same content of gluconic acid.
At about 4,4 ° C (temperature of meat) hydrolysis of GDL is at about the same speed in the water, and a 5% solution of sodium chloride (sodium chloride is usually present in meat emulsions).