ANKOM – a new instrument for the determination of fat in muscle and meat cuts – a comparison

Abstract. The objective of this study was to compare the new fat extraction equipment ANKOM^XT15 Extractor with different chemical and physical methods which are widely used to determinate the fat content of different animal tissues. In total 23 pigs and 19 cattle were included in the investigations. Different cuts of the carcasses like longissimus muscle (MLD), head, belly and breast, feet, ham, neck, loin, tenderloin and subcutaneous fats were used for this comparison. The investigation compared following three chemical methods: classic Soxhlet method, automatic fat extraction (ANKOM^XT15 Extractor), automatic fat extraction following hydrolysing (ANKOM^HCL Hydrolysis System, ANKOM^XT15 Extractor) and two physical methods: Infratec1255 Food and Feed Analyzer and FoodScan™ Lab (FOSS). For accurate statistical analysis the different cuts were ordered into three fat groups. The repeatability (θ) of the chemical methods was calculated, which ranged between 0.88–1.00. No significant differences were measured between the new tested device ANKOMXT15 Extractor and the Soxhlet method. The use of the ANKOM^XT15 Extractor is recommended because of the high precision, low purchase and using costs, and shorter analyses time.