Effects of Billet-Making Methods on Volatile Flavor Components of Sanhua Plum Fruit Billets Based on Headspace-Gas Chromatography-Ion Mobility Spectroscopy and Electronic Nose

In order to investigate the effect of billet-making methods on the volatile components of the Sanhua plum fruit billets, electronic nose and headspace-gas chromatography-ion mobility spectroscopy (HS-GC-IMS) were used to analyze and compare the volatile components of four groups of samples of salt cured, sulfite mixed salt cured, lactic acid bacteria fermented fruit billets and fresh fruit control. The results showed that both the electronic nose linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and the principal component analysis based on the HS-GC-IMS assay results clearly distinguished the four groups of samples, the flavor characteristics of fresh fruits were significantly changed after different curing treatments, and the differences among fruit blanks samples were significant. HS-GC-IMS detected and identified a total of 49 volatile compounds in four groups of samples, and the high relative contents were mainly alcohols, esters and aldehydes. The relative odor activity value (ROAV) showed significant differences in key flavor substances among the three fruit billets, the lactic acid fermented fruit billet had the highest total peak volume of volatile flavor substances (194760) and the most types of key flavor substances (10), mainly short-chain aldehydes. From the perspective of flavor richness of fruit billets, the flavor quality of fruit billet by lactic acid fermentation was considered to be better. The results of this study provided an useful reference for the selection of the billet-making methods of Sanhua plums.