A Study on Table Olive Fermentations of Gemlik Olive cv. Through Physico-Chemical, Sensory Analyses and Mathematical Model Fitting

Abstract

Gemlik olive was studied by a combined strategy consisting of physic-chemical, sensorial analyses and mathematical relationship among these parameters. Moisture contents of olive fruits decreased from 36.64% to 23.86%, both salt concentration and firmness increased to 9.35 g NaCI/100 g and 51.6% respectively. Total phenols of olive fruits changed from 1714.5 mg GAE/kg to 451.4 mg GAE/kg and radical scavenging activity (DPPH %) decreased from 91.48% to 32.14% respectively. L*, a* and b* values of Gemlik olives were decreased during fermentation. There was a close relationship among physicochemical parameters of Gemlik olives in mathematically. In order to model this mathematical relation, Vandermonde matrix based 3th degree polynomial equations was used because it gave best model fits for the data of physical and chemical parameters of olive fruits. On the other hand, according to the results of sensory evaluation, the attributes of saltness and crispiness were highly scored (7.21-7.34) but the sensory scores of astringency and bitterness were evaluated from 4.56 to 5.61 by participants. The physico-chemical characteristic changes during the fermentation of Gemlik olives subjected to dry salting method for producing table olives were modeled and suggested with the determined physico-chemical evaluation scores to future studies.