title: Nature and distribution of the volatile components in the different regions of an artisanal ripened sheep cheese.
abstract: The distribution of the volatile components in four regions, Rind, Exterior, Intermediate, and Interior, of hand-made Idiazabal cheese which had been ripened for two months was studied in detail. It is proved that the headspace of this ripened sheep cheese is non-homogeneous in the different cheese regions. The Rind is the richest region in volatile compounds, followed by the Exterior region. A large number of compounds with different functional groups have their greatest abundances in the Rind with negative abundance gradients towards the interior regions. Many of these are undetectable in the Intermediate and Interior regions. Other compounds such as aldehydes having a great number of carbon atoms, and most of the acids have their greatest abundances in the Exterior region. Alcohols, ketones and esters of small size have their greatest abundances in the Intermediate region. And finally, a reduced number of compounds are distributed homogeneously in all cheese regions. The origin of the compounds, the conditions that favour their formation, their functional groups, size, shape and reactivity could be factors involved in their distribution in the cheese, which in turn is associated with the microbial ecology, chemical reactions and physical effects.
authors: Tecnología de Alimentos, Facultad de Farmacia, Lascaray Research Hubs, Universidad del País Vasco, Paseo de la Universidad 7, 01006 Vitoria, Spain. mariadolores.guillen@ehu.es
authors: María D
authors: MD
authors: Guillén
authors: Begoña
authors: B
authors: Abascal
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002611:Cheese / Q000032:analysis* / Q000592:standards*; D005504:Food Analysis; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D012756:Sheep; D052617:Solid Phase Microextraction; D055549:Volatile Organic Compounds / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D055549:Volatile Organic Compounds