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2026 Vol.53, Issue 3 Preview Page

Animal

Meat quality attributes of loin among different beef marbling scores within 1++ grade Hanwoo steers
Woo Heo1†
,
Shil Jin2†
,
Seul-Ki-Chan Jeong1
,
Hayeon Jeon1
,
Soeun Kim1
,
Seokhee Han1
,
Hanwool Do2
,
Samooel Jung1*
1Department of Animal Science and Biotechnology, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, Korea
2Hanwoo Research Center, National Institute of Animal Science, Pyeongchang 25340, Korea
*Corresponding Author
†These authors equally contributed to this study as first author.
1 September 2026. pp. 359-368
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Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the meat quality characteristics of Hanwoo loin according to different beef marbling score (BMS; No. 7, 8, and 9) levels within the 1++ quality grade. The BMS No. 9 group showed significantly higher crude fat content and lower moisture and crude protein contents than the BMS No. 7 and 8 groups (p < 0.05). Additionally, cooking loss and Warner-Bratzler shear force were significantly lower in the BMS No. 9 group than in the other groups (p < 0.05), whereas no significant differences in pH were observed among the BMS groups (p > 0.05). Spearman rank correlation analysis revealed that crude fat content was strongly negatively correlated with moisture (rs = -0.98) and crude protein contents (rs = -0.90), and moderately negatively correlated with cooking loss (rs = -0.46) and shear force (rs = -0.25) (p < 0.01). These findings demonstrate that the BMS No. 9 group exhibited distinct proximate composition and meat quality attributes compared with the BMS No. 7 and 8 groups, even within the same 1++ quality grade, suggesting that subdividing the 1++ grade is necessary to provide more precise quality information for highly marbled Hanwoo beef.

Keywords
cooking loss
Hanwoo
marbling score
proximate composition
shear force
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Information
  • Publisher :Institute of Agricultural Science, Chungnam National University
  • Publisher(Ko) :충남대학교 농업과학연구소
  • Journal Title :Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
  • Journal Title(Ko) :농업과학연구
  • Volume : 53
  • No :3
  • Pages :359-368
  • Received Date : 2026-06-15
  • Revised Date : 2026-08-04
  • Accepted Date : 2026-08-05
  • DOI :https://doi.org/10.7744/kjoas.530306
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