Abstract
The purposes of this study were to investigate the effects of two different pekmez production methods namely open pan evaporation (OPE) and vacuum evaporation (VE) on the final products, and to observe the changes in constituents as well as aromatic components after 4 months of storage. The initial and poststorage (4 months) 5-hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF) content in OPE apple pekmez were respectively 5.48, and 7.04 mg/kg. No HMF was detected in VE apple pekmez. Both initial and poststorage content of phenolic compounds was higher in VE pekmez compared to OPE pekmez. The effects of production methods and storage time were statistically significant on phenolic compounds in apple pekmez. The content of all analyzed minerals except calcium has significantly decreased in pekmez compared to raw material on dry weight basis. OPE resulted in a 55.97 % loss in the amount of ascorbic acid, whereas the loss in VE has been 23.45 %. Poststorage loss in ascorbic acid has respectively been 69.54, and 89.28 %, for VE and OPE samples. None of the aromatic components of fresh apple was detected in pekmez.