Study on formation law of volatile flavor compounds in bacon using electronic nose and GC-MS

To investigate the changes in whole flavor of bacon during processing, the volatile flavor compounds in samples of Sichuan traditional smoked-and-cured bacon from each processing stage were analyzed by solid-phase microextraction (SPME) combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) , then whole flavor of these different samples was compared by Partial Least Squares (PLS) regression analysis and electronic nose (eNose) . The results showed that a total of 183 volatile compounds were identified by GC-MS in the headspace of at least one processing stage sample, which could be grouped into classes of aldehydes, alkanes, ketones, heterocyclic compounds, alcohols, phenols, esters, etc. As the process continued, the kinds of flavor compounds increased from 75 in the green bacon to 116 in the final products, and the total peak area increased by about 4 times over the whole processing. The eNose and PLS analysis could distinguish the samples of different processing stages well. So both the whole flavor and the kinds or content of volatile flavor compounds in the samples of Sichuan traditional smoke-cured bacon changed significantly during processing, its flavor was formed gradually.