Correlations between physical-chemical properties and sensory qualities of crab paste during the fermentation process

Objective: To research the changes of physical-chemical and sensory properties of crab paste, and their relationships during natural fermentation process.Methods: The crab paste was prepared from the low value sea crab of Bohai as raw material, the sensory and physical-chemical properties of different fermentation stages were analyzed, and the correlation analysis and stepwise regressions analysis were carried out.Results: The result of correlation analysis showed that crab flavor, fermented flavor, fishy smell, umami, ammonia smell, salt taste, sweet taste, bitter taste, texture and color were all significantly ( p < 0.05) or extremely significant ( p < 0.01) linear correlated with one or more indicators of water, p H, total acid, crude protein, amino acid nitrogen, reducing sugar and TVB-N.Water, p H, crude protein, amino acid nitrogen and TVB-N could be used to construct the regression model of sensory qualities of crab paste. The predictive model variance interpretation rate of crab flavor, fermented flavor, fishy smell, umami, ammonia smell, salt taste, sweet taste, bitter taste, texture and color were 69.1%, 88.4%, 90.5%, 68.7%, 67.3%, 88.2%, 65.7%, 63.3%, 94.1% and 90.1%.Conclusions: A good correlation between physical-chemical properties and sensory qualities, the physical-chemical properties could be used to construct the regression model of sensory qualities of crab paste.