MONITORING SAUSAGE FERMENTATION USING AN ELECTRONIC NOSE

In this study a sensor array and pattern recognition routines (an elec tronic nose) were used to monitor a sausage fermentation in order to f ollow the changes in emitted volatile compounds during the fermentatio n process and to compare the electronic nose results with a sensory an alysis. From the sensor array responses the fermentation time could be predicted using different methods, when: principal component regressi on and an artificial neural network based on all sensors in the electr onic nose performed best. A sensory panel evaluated the final product and these results were compared with the electronic nose measurements in the early stage of the process and on the final sausages. A princip al component analysis showed that one of the sausage batches clearly d eviated from the other using both the sensory panel data and the elect ronic nose responses The deviating batch was different already after 4 h and the difference was consistent during the process. (C) 1998 SCI.