The objective of this work was to evaluate the post mortem pH evolution, color, cooking losses and shear force of longissimus dorsi (LD) and semimembranosus (SM) muscles of forty nine sheep from two breed group, Bergamácia x Santa Inês (BgxSI) and Ile de France x Santa Inês (IFxSI), males and females of four slaughter weight groups of 15, 25, 35 and 45kg. The breed group presented differences of pH in the LD and SM muscles (P<0,05). The breed group BgxSI showed higher pH than breed group IFxSI. The color, the gender factor presented no significant effect differences for color, however breed group had effect: L* (P<0.001) of 35.25 and 32.89 for breed group IFxSI and BgxSI, respectively; and value a* (P<0.001) of 16.09 and 14.64 for breed group BgxSI and IFxSI, respectively. In the cooking losses LD and SM muscles showed no significant effect of the breed group, sex and slaughter weight group. The factors studied shear force had no effect on SM muscle. However, the slaughter weight group had effect on the shear force (P<0.005) of the LD muscle, with slaughter weight groups of 15 and 25kg showing higher shear force (13.57 and 10.98kgf, respectively) than slaughter weight groups of 35 and 45kg (8.56 and 7.97kgf, respectively).
sheep; meat quality; shear force
