Abstract:To improve the quality of goose meat, enzymatic tenderization with papain was used, and the effects of different treatment conditions on goose meat were analyzed. Based on the results of single-factor experiments, response surface methodology with four factors and three levels was applied for process optimization. Papain concentration (A), temperature (B), pH (C), and incubation time (D) were used as independent variables, and sensory characteristics were set as the response surface indicator. Through regression analysis, the optimal process conditions for obtaining the best sensory properties were enzyme concentration of 0.076%, temperature of 60 ℃, pH of 7.6, and incubation time of 55 min. The predicted score of sensory evaluation under these conditions was 82.5, which was significantly improved from the value without treatment (59.7). The shear force was 26.47 N, which was 38.83% lower than that before tenderization, and the overall quality was significantly improved. The actual sensory quality results were close to the model values, indicating that the model exhibited satisfactory predictive performance. This work provides preliminary data and builds a theoretical foundation to establish practical processing techniques for the enzymatic tenderization of goose meat.