Ohmic heating pretreatment accelerates black garlic processing

Black garlic (BG) is obtained by the Maillard reaction under controlled conditions of temperature and humidity.This study describes ohmic heating (OH) as pretreatment in BG processing (OH-BG) compared to traditional treatment process (TT-BG).Physicochemical composition and sensory properties were of particular interest in this study.The electroporation produced by ohmic heating as a pretreatment causes the hydrolysis of fructans, which settles during storage under traditional treatment conditions (70 ° C / 94% RH), and causes the acceleration of the Maillard reaction.This reaction cuts down the time to attain the characteristic color of black garlic from 30 to 12 days.The 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furaldehyde (HMF) content was 3.6 times higher in OH-BG than in TT-BG.The polyphenol content and antioxidant capacity did not show differences between TT-BG and OH-BG, but their levels were superior to commercial sample.Both products (OH-BG and TT-BG) were sweet (36.8 and 31.6 ºBx, respectively) and had an excellent organoleptic acceptance (75 and 70%).These results highlight the potential of ohmic heating pretreatment in reducing the time to obtain good quality BG.