Abstract
Soy sauce contains a variety of volatiles that are highly valuable to its quality with regard to sensory characteristics. This paper describes the analysis of volatile compounds influencing the flavor quality of Chinese-type soy sauces. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) combined with headspace-solid phase microextraction and electronic nose (E-nose) were applied for identifying the volatile flavor compounds as well as determining their volatile profiles of 12 soy sauces manufactured by different fermentation process. Forty one key volatile components of these 12 soy sauce products, a pure soy sauce and an acid-hydrolyzed vegetable protein sample, were compared in semi-quantitative form, and their volatile flavor profiles were analyzed by E-nose. The substantially similar results between hierarchical cluster analysis based on GC-MS data and E-nose analysis suggested that both techniques may be useful in evaluating the flavor quality of soy sauces and differentiating soy sauce products. The study also showed that there were less volatile flavor compounds in soy sauces produced through low-salt solid-state fermentation process, a traditional manufacturing technology and a widely adopted technology in Chinese soy sauce industries. In addition, the investigation suggested that the flavor quality of soy sauce varied widely in Chinese domestic market, and that the present Chinese national standards of soy sauce should be further perfected by the addition of flavor grades of soy sauce in the physical and chemical index. Meanwhile, this research provided valuable information to manufacturers and government regulators, which have practical significance to improve quality of soy sauces.