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Tough cuts of meat can be made more tender by increasing cooking times, pounding the meat to physically break down the collagen bonds, hanging, aging, adding an acid-based marinade or using an enzyme.

Papain is an enzyme extracted from the papaya fruit, and has been used for thousands of years in South America as a tenderiser for meat and other proteins. The enzyme is a hydrolase that catalyses the hydrolysis of proteins which results in the breakdown of tough meat fibres.

Enzymatic preparations based on papain are widely used, not only for meat tenderising, but also in biscuit manufacture and the chill proofing of beer.

Papain, when used in baking, improves the extensibility (‘stretchiness’) of dough and gives the final biscuits a smooth surface free of cracks. When brewing beer, the haze levels increase when the beer is cooled – papain effectively combats the haze for a clear product the consumer prefers.

NBI Papain^TM from National Bread Improvers is a proteolytic enzyme preparation which is effective at a dosage level of 8 – 20 g per 100 kg of meat. The product comes in a powdered form and is frequently incorporated into spice preparations and marinades for meat tenderising.

International Fine Ingredients have a similar proteolytic enzyme preparation, but in liquid form. VERON® L10 is an endo-peptidase that degrades high molecular proteins into low molecular peptides and amino acids. The effective dosage range is 20 – 30 g per 100 kg of meat (dependant on substrate, pH and temperature). VERON® L10 can also be used in the degradation of fish by-products and in peptone production.