Homogenization of frozen meat

[Rick]

Hello!
I need to homogenizate some sample of Frozen meat but i don't know which instrument use..blender' chopper ect???
Can you help me?

[Steve Reimer]

If it must stay frozen a blender won't cut it. If you can thaw it out then you need to consider what you want to use it for.

For my purposes, looking for persistent organic pollutants in fish and other tissue samples, a grinder works best. From a small Kitchenaid attachment for a stand mixer up to a 2 horsepower Hobart meat grinder I have done shrews up to salmon. A long time ago we had tissue-mizers type grinders but found they did not produce a well homogenized product.

Then again my last tissue project was clams for volatiles so I used a cryo mill to powder the clam meat at liquid nitrogen temperatures.

So the quick answer is: more detail in the question, please.

[Rick]

Hello Steve
Thank you for your reply.
We analyse pesticides in meat..beef, chicken, fish and the sample must stay in frozen state.
Cryo mill with dry ice is our option.....some publication use STEPHAN mixer for frozen vegetables but for the frozen meat, the hardness is very different
I have seen on internet the new grinder from RETSCH..the Grindomix GM300.
http://www.retsch.com/products/milling/ ... ls/gm-300/

What is your equipement?


Thank you

[AICMM]

Rick,

Talk to Retcsh. They seem to be the experts on this sort of stuff.

Best regards,

AICMM

[DR]

I used to do this exact thing for part of a total cholesterol assay.

Meat plugs (used a keyhole saw on a drill press to core somewhat frozen chops, plugs were about an inch in diameter, 1.5-2in in length) were dropped in liquid Nitrogen and thoroughly frozen. A little liquid nitrogen was also used to pre-cool a lab-grade Waring blender (stainless steel) pitcher. The core was tehn placed into the blender w/o any liquid N2 and the blender was started and run for just 6-10 seconds (until you could not hear any more chunks rattling around). If you got everything about right (temps, timing) - you could flip the blender over onto a large weigh dish or piece of weigh paper and have a mound of meat snow, and a whistle clean blender to boot.

It's noisy as all get-out, but it works.

[Rick]

Yes....good idea...i will try it
Thank you Dr

[DR]

If you have limited sample, go to the store and get something to "practice" on.

[Steve Reimer]

I used a Spex 6750, borrowed from our asbestos lab.
The temperature is controlled by a bath of liquid nitrogen.

[MaryCarson]

If you have at least 100 g or so, a vertical cutter mixer with equal volume dry ice works well. We use a Robot Coupe RSI 2YI for that quantity, letting the dry ice evaporate in a -20 freezer overnight. Gives a very nice powder to work with. For smaller quantities, it is possible to buy stainless steel jars for some brands of blenders.