Traditional ritual slaughter is an underlying practice in religious Jewish communities and it translates into eating in accordance with core beliefs. This paper aims to comprehensively analyze factors determining the kosher status of beef (sex, slaughter method, and muscle type) and assess their impact on selected quality properties, such as color or texture profile. Sensory evaluation was also performed. The muscles were obtained from 80 carcasses (50% of heifers and 50% of young bulls). The experimental results indicate that each studied kosherness determinant influenced beef quality properties. The process of koshering caused the darkening of beef and lowered the share of color parameters red (a*) and yellow (b*). The influence of the type of slaughter on the values of adhesiveness, gumminess, and chewiness of beef was confirmed; higher values were mostly obtained in the muscles of cattle from kosher slaughter. As to sensory evaluation, the study showed that in the case of muscle type, the sex and slaughter method positively influenced only some of the properties.
Keywords: color changes; kosher beef quality; ritual slaughter; sensory properties; texture profile.