A beefy drink
It was my first experience of camping with a team of foreign students last year. I’m so excited. I had this terrible urge to live in the woods and cook a freshly killed rabbit over a campfire. Shawn, one of my teammates asked me to try a ‘beef tea’. He brought Bovril (bovine meat extract) from his hometown, United Kingdom. “Have you ever tried this stuff? It's a concentrated form of vitamins, minerals and protein. It is an essential survival drink and my parents always consume Bovril with a piece of crusty bread during cold winter”. Sounds weird!
After camping, I wondered about Bovril a lot, where’s the beef? So, I do some research to know more about this stuff. Actually, Bovril is a trademarked name of a thick, salty meat extract, created by John Lawson Johnston in the 1870s. It can be made as a drink by diluting with hot water or milk and also can be used as a substitute for stock or flavour enhancer in recipes. I won’t go into much detail about the consumption of Bovril. Now, let’s describe more about one of the ingredients in Bovril which is ‘meat extract’. Meat extract is not only come from beef meat, but it can be made from bone or liver of beef. Bovril’s meat extract is a molasses-like black, non-fluid sticky paste that consists of reduced meat stock. It is obtained by extracting meat with boiling water, filtering separation of fat and then, the liquid portion is being concentrated by evaporation of water. Totally, meat extract product consists not less than seventy-five percent of total solids
Generally, meat extract is a mixture of peptides and amino acids, nucleotide fractions, organic acids, minerals and some vitamins. And meat extract contains relatively large amounts of creatine and creatinine. For the high quality of meat extract, both of these guanidine compounds should not comprise less than 10% of the total nitrogen on a dry basis. If you realized that no creatine or creatinine is found in your meat extract, that means you have been cheated in establishing the source and purity of an extract of meat. True meat extracts give high creatine and creatinine results, while yeast extract does not consist both of these compounds. So, be careful!!
Nowadays, people always concern about the composition of their foods. So, let me tell you guys more about it. Meat extract has at least 50 to 70% of protein content or greater with the moisture content of about 25-40% and less than 5% of the salt content. The protein must have a minimum of 22% total essential amino acid. For example, 0.2% of L-Tryptophan and about 3% of L-Leucine. For fat content, it should not be more than six-tenths or (0.6) percent. Another characteristic of meat extract is that the amount of inosine and inosinic acid, which have been shown to be a meat flavour enhancer in food. These acids give the desirable flavour and/or aroma to the meat extract.
In the production of meat extract, the raw meat is extracted with water in the presence proteolytic enzymes either exopeptidase or endopeptidase. Examples of such enzymes are papain, bromelain, trypsin, pepsin and etc. The addition of proteolytic enzyme allows the proteins breakdowns into shorter lengths which are water soluble. The meat is finely chopped and macerated in the same weight of cold distilled water and squeezed out, the water dissolves from 16 to 24 percent of the weight of the dry flesh. The extraction process may take place at an extraction temperature of between about 45 °C to 80 °C. Subsequently, heating to temperatures between about 90 °C about 120 °C for a period of between about 15 minutes and about 1 hour to inactivate enzymes and increase extract yield. During heating, the albumin of the flesh separates as a flocculent that precipitates when the temperature reaches 56 °C and the red colouring matter of the blood, as well albumin, coagulates at the temperature of 70 °C. The extract of meat, from which the albumin has been strained, becomes darker in colour when evaporated at a gentle heat.
After camping, I wondered about Bovril a lot, where’s the beef? So, I do some research to know more about this stuff. Actually, Bovril is a trademarked name of a thick, salty meat extract, created by John Lawson Johnston in the 1870s. It can be made as a drink by diluting with hot water or milk and also can be used as a substitute for stock or flavour enhancer in recipes. I won’t go into much detail about the consumption of Bovril. Now, let’s describe more about one of the ingredients in Bovril which is ‘meat extract’. Meat extract is not only come from beef meat, but it can be made from bone or liver of beef. Bovril’s meat extract is a molasses-like black, non-fluid sticky paste that consists of reduced meat stock. It is obtained by extracting meat with boiling water, filtering separation of fat and then, the liquid portion is being concentrated by evaporation of water. Totally, meat extract product consists not less than seventy-five percent of total solids
Generally, meat extract is a mixture of peptides and amino acids, nucleotide fractions, organic acids, minerals and some vitamins. And meat extract contains relatively large amounts of creatine and creatinine. For the high quality of meat extract, both of these guanidine compounds should not comprise less than 10% of the total nitrogen on a dry basis. If you realized that no creatine or creatinine is found in your meat extract, that means you have been cheated in establishing the source and purity of an extract of meat. True meat extracts give high creatine and creatinine results, while yeast extract does not consist both of these compounds. So, be careful!!
Nowadays, people always concern about the composition of their foods. So, let me tell you guys more about it. Meat extract has at least 50 to 70% of protein content or greater with the moisture content of about 25-40% and less than 5% of the salt content. The protein must have a minimum of 22% total essential amino acid. For example, 0.2% of L-Tryptophan and about 3% of L-Leucine. For fat content, it should not be more than six-tenths or (0.6) percent. Another characteristic of meat extract is that the amount of inosine and inosinic acid, which have been shown to be a meat flavour enhancer in food. These acids give the desirable flavour and/or aroma to the meat extract.
In the production of meat extract, the raw meat is extracted with water in the presence proteolytic enzymes either exopeptidase or endopeptidase. Examples of such enzymes are papain, bromelain, trypsin, pepsin and etc. The addition of proteolytic enzyme allows the proteins breakdowns into shorter lengths which are water soluble. The meat is finely chopped and macerated in the same weight of cold distilled water and squeezed out, the water dissolves from 16 to 24 percent of the weight of the dry flesh. The extraction process may take place at an extraction temperature of between about 45 °C to 80 °C. Subsequently, heating to temperatures between about 90 °C about 120 °C for a period of between about 15 minutes and about 1 hour to inactivate enzymes and increase extract yield. During heating, the albumin of the flesh separates as a flocculent that precipitates when the temperature reaches 56 °C and the red colouring matter of the blood, as well albumin, coagulates at the temperature of 70 °C. The extract of meat, from which the albumin has been strained, becomes darker in colour when evaporated at a gentle heat.
A flow chart for the production of meat extract
The extraction process results in a meat extract having a high quality of amino acids which are still in their intrinsic peptide structure. This process is influenced by the condition of times, temperature and concentration of salt present. The soluble protein increased with time and high salt concentration. During heating, most of the sarcoplasmic proteins aggregate when the temperature reaches between 40 °C and 60 °C. And myofibrillar proteins start to unfold at temperature 30-32 °C and continued by protein-protein association and subsequent gelation at 45-50 °C. Protein denaturation can happen when the temperature reaches 60 °C. Next, the extract is clarified from all insoluble material by means of filtration. In the further process, the fat is separated from the extract to produce the free fat product. An evaporation process is used to concentrate the meat extract with the moisture content of <30%.
Now, I have realized that there are a lot of things that I can learn from the world wide web with a single click online. When I first encountered, I thought that meat extract such as Bovril is a liquid cow or a cow-flavoured jam! Yes, it does sound bizarre due to its wired name! However, once I tried. It tastes good and awful. Let’s make a hot drink with Bovril or spread it on your toast!
