S. Rocha et al., IMPROVEMENT OF THE VOLATILE COMPONENTS OF CORK FROM QUERCUS-SUBER L BY AN AUTOCLAVING PROCEDURE, Journal of agricultural and food chemistry, 44(3), 1996, pp. 872-876
The volatiles of cork slabs submitted to a novel industrial treatment,
autoclaving, were compared with the volatiles of the untreated slabs
to establish the usefulness of this treatment as a cleanup procedure.
The condensed steams corresponding to the first and a second autoclavi
ng process were also analyzed. The volatile compounds of cork and of a
utoclaved condensed steam were extracted by simultaneous distillation-
extraction and analyzed by gas chromatography and combined gas chromat
ography-high-resolution mass spectrometry. Cork. slabs treated with st
eam under pressure showed smaller amounts of the volatile components w
ith musty, moldy, and related odors, such as 3-methyl-1-butanol, 1-oct
anol, and guaiacol and other mold metabolites. The condensed steam con
tained compounds corresponding to those extracted from the cork. The a
utoclaving process has potential for industrial use to clean the cork
and to reduce volatiles of microbial origin in cork samples.