The frozen surimis of Alaska pollack, white croaker and tilapia were ground with 3% salt. The meat pastes were submitted to proceed the setting, so-called “suwari”, at a fixed temperature in the range of 10-45°C. During the setting, a portion of the meat pastes were taken out to assess the jelly strength.
As temperature increased, the apparent rate for the setting was enhanced for all fish species. The temperature dependence of the rate for setting, however, was remarkably different among them; the setting of the paste from Alaska pollack was rapidly proceeded even at lower temperature but the similar setting rate of the paste from tilapia was obtained only at higher temperature. The setting of the paste from white croaker proceeded at moderate rate.
ARRHENIUS plots for the setting rate of meat pastes from three fish species showed that they have significantly different slopes, approached each other at higher temperatures and gave an identical setting rate at around 49°C.
The thermodynamic activation parameters for the setting rates, estimated from the corresponding ARRHENIUS plots, were found to be increased from cold water to warm water fish, although the proportions of ΔH^≠ and ΔS^≠ varied considerably but that of ΔG^≠ somewhat among fish species.