The earthy/musty off-flavor compounds geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol are responsible for the major quality problems reported for catfish fillets.  Methods of removal or masking of the off-flavor from the fillets of catfish or other species vary from salting and drying combination, smoking, frying, microwave heating, acidic (acetic, citric, tea polyphenols) marinade treatments, carbohydrate fermentation, dimethyl sulfide, and ozonized water, with varying degrees of success.  This study examined the effect of marinating with a cooking rice wine, whole milk, or citric acid (with or without neutralization), for baked catfish fillet.  Solution uptake, cooking loss, pH changes, a trained sensory panel determination, and SPME headspace GC-MS analysis were evaluated.  Acid marinade caused the least solution uptake while neutralized acid marinade was the greatest.  Milk resulted in a slightly lower cooking loss.  Cooking generally increased pH above the precooked values, with neutralized acid treatment equaling the water marinated control with the highest pH of 7.6, while acid treatment was the lowest pH at 7.0, it was only slightly below the non-treated control with a pH of 7.1.  The sensory panel scored ten flavor attributes, including earthy/musty.  Milk slightly reduced the earthy/musty off-flavor, but other treatments were equal to the water or untreated control.  GC-MS analysis showed milk to cause a decrease in geosmin concentration, corresponding to the sensory panel results.

Investigation of catfish marinate treatments on the degradation of off-flavor components, geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol

255th National Meeting (2018)

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