Criteria of aroma intensity of sour cream butter

Abstract

Background. It is important to develop criteria for aroma and taste characterization on the basis of chemical composition of the product, that would help to evaluate the product quality.
The aim of this work was to define dependence between aroma intensity of commercially available sour cream butter and physical-chemical parameters of the product as well as content of certain chemical compounds.
Material and methods. Qualitative and quantitative content of sour cream butter aromatic compounds was determined by gas chromatograph Krystallyuks 4000m (FFAP capillary column 60 m long with an internal diameter of 0.25 mm). The content of diacetyl in butter was determined by spectrophotometer.
The objects of the study were the samples of sour cream butter of six European producers bought in retail chains. The quality was evaluated by DSTU 4399 : 2005 [7].
Results. Among the analyzed parameters, the total content of volatile fatty acids and the content ratio of acetic and lactic acids reflects best theproduct flavoring.
It was identified that samples with more intensive flavor contained more volatile fatty acids (VFA) compared to less aromatic samples (7.55–8.55 and 4.4–6.15 milli-equivalents/100 g of butter respectively).
A clear relationship between the intensity ratio of acetic aroma and / butyric acid was not established. It was found that acetic to lactic acid ratio negatively correlates with flavor intensity of sour cream butter and may be used as grading factor. The same negative correlation was determined for diacetyl whereas acetaldehyde content increased simultaneously with aroma. It was proposed to evaluate diacetyl to acetaldehyde ratio as it positively correlated with aroma intensity.
Conclusion. It was established that flavor intensity of commercially available sour cream butter range from unexpressed to intensive sour cream aroma. It was shown that among all the physicochemical and biochemical parameters analyzed total content of volatile fatty acids and active acidity of plasma provided the most representative evaluation of product flavoring. The ratio of acetic acid to butyric acid did not correlate with the intensity of flavor; however, for the ratio of acetic acid to lactic acid and sour cream butter aroma intensity values showed a negative correlation, r = 0.91 (n = 10; P < 0.05). In the future this indicator may serve as a criterion for the flavor intensity scoring of sour cream butter.