Impact of high pressure assisted thawing on the quality of fillets from various fish species 1 1 Presented in part at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Western European Fish Technologists’ Association, May 12–15 2002, Galway, Ireland.

A comparison between the influence of pressure assisted thawing at 200 MPa and that of conventional thawing in 15 8C water at ambient pressure on the quality of thawed fish fillets has been carried out. Data showed that pressure assisted thawed and water thawed fillets exhibit visual differences. Organoleptic characteristics of the high pressure treated fillets were better compared to the conventional water thawed samples before cooking. Further differences were observed, in the total viable count of micro- organisms, pH value, water binding ability, instrumentally evaluated texture parameters and in thermoanalytical behaviour. Also, the effects of the selected treatments differed according to the fish species. Consequently, the specific properties of samples must be taken into consideration when designing pressure supported processes. 2003 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Industrial relevance: This paper is of high industrial relevance as it deals with an approach to solve the commercially important problem of thawing frozen fish. The use of high hydrostatic pressure enables the freezing and melting point to be controlled. The melting point of pure water can decrease to a temperature of y22 8C at a pressue of 209 MPa. Thus, a higher absolute temperature difference between the product and the surrounding medium can be achieved at moderate temperature levles. The necessary heat of fusion decreases likewise to a minimum at 209 MPa as compared to atmospheric pressure. Together these two effects result in an acceleration of the thawing process. A further target of the application of high pressure assisted thawing in the processing of fish is a reduction of the amount of tape water currently used as thawing medium.