Work

Quality Assessment of Prune Jam with Different Concentration Methods Based on Physicochemical Properties, GC-IMS, and Intelligent Sensory Analysis

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This study systematically investigated the impacts of four concentration methods—vacuum freezing concentration (VFC), microwave vacuum concentration (MVC), atmospheric thermal concentration (ATC), and vacuum thermal concentration (VTC)—on the quality and volatile compounds of prune jam. Advanced analytical techniques, including electronic tongue, electronic nose, gas chromatography–ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS), and multivariate statistical methods (principal component analysis, partial least squares discriminant analysis), were employed to evaluate physicochemical properties and flavor profiles. Results showed that non-thermal methods (particularly VFC) significantly outperformed thermal methods (ATC/VTC) in nutrient preservation. For instance, VFC retained 91.4% of ascorbic acid and limited dietary fiber loss to 4.55%, while ATC caused up to 60.1% ascorbic acid degradation and 51.75% dietary fiber loss. In terms of color stability, VFC induced a 1.04-fold increase in browning index (BI) and a 2.54-fold increase in total color difference (ΔE), significantly lower than ATC’s 1.6-fold BI increase and 7.26-fold ΔE rise. GC-IMS identified 42 volatile compounds, categorized into aldehydes (17), alcohols (9), esters (7), etc. Multivariate analysis screened 15 key flavor compounds (VIP > 1, p < 0.05), such as ethyl acetate and methanol, revealing that non-thermal methods better preserved the characteristic sweet–sour flavor and reduced off-flavor formation. These findings highlight VFC’s superiority in maintaining nutritional and sensory quality, providing scientific guidance for industrial jam production and flavor optimization in fruit processing.

Source: Foods

DOI: 10.3390/foods14122084