Abstract
Hairtail fish samples were stored at different freezing temperatures of -5 °C, -20 °C, -40 °C and -80 °C. To establish an effective quality evaluation approach for hairtail samples during frozen storage, fractal dimension was used to observe the porous microstructure that resulted from the ice crystal formation in frozen hairtail meat. The results showed that the initial value of fractal dimension of all the samples was 1.968. After frozen storage, the fractal dimension of samples at -5 °C, -20 °C, -40 °C and -80 °C decreased to 1.539, 1.682, 1.856 and 1.896, respectively. Traditional quality indicators such as water activity, color and textural properties (i.e., hardness, springiness and chewiness) also exhibited a similar decreasing trend, and the rate of change decreased with a decrease in storage temperature. The relationships were analyzed, and these traditional quality indicators were correlated with the fractal dimension with determined correlation coefficients within ±0.900. Moreover, based on the fractal dimension model, the first-order kinetic equation of fractal dimension variation during storage was [Formula: see text], which can be used to predict the shelf life of preserved hairtails at different storage temperatures. The results demonstrated fractal dimension was a novel and feasible method to evaluate the quality of hairtails in frozen storage.