Physical, chemical and antioxidant properties of solid and sour apple pekmez

Author: Ilkay Koca ^* and Bulent Karadeniz

Received 14 July 2009, accepted 2 October 2009.

Abstract

Pekmez is a traditional Turkish food commonly produced from grape. It can also be produced from fruits containing high amounts of sugar like apple, plum, and apricot. Apple pekmez has been produced from fresh apples in Turkey using traditional techniques. Apple pekmez is produced as either liquid or solid. The acidity of apple juice is not reduced with pekmez soil, or CaCO₃ in sour apple pekmez production. In this study, physical, chemical, and antioxidant properties of solid and sour apple pekmez were determined. For this purpose, thirty samples of pekmez were analysed. Hunter L values of pekmez samples ranged between 15.06 and 24.42. Hunter a value was between + 0.32 and +3.81 and b value was between +0.47 and +4.62. Additional analysed characteristics were water activity (0.550-0.867), total soluble solids (65-85%), total sugar content (258.60-739.40 g kg^-1), reducing sugar (167.20-617.60 g kg^-1), unreducing sugar (1.80-198.70 g kg^-1), pH (3.04-4.58), total acidity (9.90-75.30 g kg^-1), crude protein (2.60-12.40 g kg^-1), ash (8.00-28.70 g kg^-1) and hydroxymethyl furfural (23.54-2133.52 mg kg^-1). Total phenolics value of the pekmez samples ranged between 4603.60 and 14,252.25 mg kg^-1, and total antioxidant activity (expressed as FRAP values) between 47.34 and 327.86 mmol g^-1. In this study, the correlation between total acidity, ash, total phenolics values and total antioxidant activity was significant (p<0.01).