Characterization of Volatile Flavor Compounds in Dry-Rendered Beef Fat by Different Solvent-Assisted Flavor Evaporation (SAFE) Combined with GC–MS, GC–O, and OAV

Abstract

To comprehensively understand the volatile flavor composition of dry-rendered beef fat, solvent-assisted flavor evaporation (SAFE) with four extraction solvents (dichloromethane, pentane, ethyl ether, and methanol) combined with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and gas chromatography–olfactormetry (GC–O) were performed. GC–MS analysis found 96 different volatile compounds in total using the four extraction solvents. According to the GC–MS results and the heat map and principal component analysis (PCA), most of the volatile compounds resulted from dichloromethane and pentane extraction, followed by ethyl ether. Methanol extraction found a few volatile compounds of higher polarity, which was supplementary to the analysis results. Moreover, GC–O analysis found 73 odor-active compounds in total using the four extraction solvents. The GC–O results found that pentane and dichloromethane extraction had a significantly larger number of odor-active compounds than ethyl ether and methanol extraction. This indicated that pentane and dichloromethane were more effective solvents for the extraction of odor-active compounds than the other two solvents. Finally, a total of 15 compounds of odor-active values (OAVs) ≥ 1 were determined to be the key aroma compounds in the dry-rendered beef fat, including 2–methyl–3–furanthiol, 3–methylthiopropanal, (E,E)–2,4–nonadienal, 12–methyltridecanal, and 1–octen–3–one.