Relationships between odorant characteristics and the most odorant volatile compounds of salmon smoked by four industrial smoking techniques

Summary Salmon fillets were smoked by four different smoke generation processes: smouldering, thermostated plates, friction and liquid smoke. The effects of three times of smoke exposure (1, 2 or 3 hours) and two smokehouse temperatures (22°C and 32°C) on smoked salmon flavour were evaluated. Smoked salmon fillets were submitted to sensory analysis and the concentration of odorant volatile compounds were investigated from aromatic extracts of smoked salmon by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry and olfactometry (GC-MS/O). Analyses of variance (ANOVA) were performed on the sensory and analytical data in order to study the effects of smoking parameters. Secondly, Partial Least Squares regression analysis have allowed to relate the sensory attributes of the different smoked salmons to their composition in odorant volatile compounds. Liquid smoke atomisation smoking process led to products described by "cold smoke" and "vegetal" caused by lipid oxidation products, pyridine derivatives, alkyl aryl ethers and several phenolic compounds such as syringol or p-cresol. The other smoked salmons were characterised by "salmon-like" attributes for a short time of process until "wood fire smoke" attributes. This odorant evolution is due to the increase of the deposition of phenolic and furannic compounds with increases of smoking parameters (time of smoke exposure and smokehouse temperature).