INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENT SMOKEHOUSES ON THE QUALITY OF SMOKED MILKFISH (Chanos chanos) UNDER CHILLED CONDITION

Smoking is a very old preservation method and is widely used in many developing countries. Smoking or smoke-curing as applied to fish preserves through the combined effects of drying, salting, heat treatment and the deposition of chemicals produced from the burning of wood (Cutting, 1965). Smoking of fish is usually craned out using a smokehouse to control the proper burning of wood. Factors that affect the rate of drying are temperature, relative humidity, smoke density and air exchange. The increase in temperature directly decrease the smoke density and relative humidity and will result to the faster smoking rate and vice versa. The main objective of the study was to compare the possible variation on the quality of final product on its sensory characteristics and microbial load before and during storage. Smoked milkfish was prepared using traditional procedures (Guevara et al., 1978). Smoking was carried out in a drum, cabinet and modified type smokehouse with an overall length of 83 cm x 47 cm, 88 cm x 115 cm diameter, 88 cm x 60 cm width respectively. The periodical sampling for sensory evaluation and microbial load determination was done on days 0, 3, 5, 7 and day 10 while, samples for the proximate composition analysis was taken out right after the smoking process. Result shows that the different smokehouse used do not greatly affect the quality of smoked milkfish but have a significant difference on its sensory characteristics base on the flavor and odor attributes as affected by the performance of each smokehouse. In general the modified type smokehouse obtained the highest score in acceptability which is like very much based on the panelist's assessment. The total plate count obtained significance differences (p<0.05) in day 0 and day 3 but all treatments are within the set limit. Proximate composition show that the percentage of total protein, ash, fats and moisture content varies to unsmoked product thus, smoking results in concentration of nutrients like protein and fat (Tao, 2008).