Effect of Reaction Conditions on the Volatile Pyrazines Components of Defatted Flaxseed Meal in the Maillard Reaction System

Abstract Defatted flaxseed meal, as a high‐protein by‐product can be used as a good raw material for the Maillard reaction (MR). A MR model system was established using glucose, fructose, and glucose/fructose (1:1) to produce volatile compounds typically obtained from defatted flaxseed meal protein hydrolysate; these compounds were analyzed using head‐space solid phase microextraction (HS‐SPME) coupled with gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry (GC–MS). From the 12 MR model reaction groups, the production of pyrazines was between 12.76% and 26.56%. In the 1G group (the group prepared using DH 1 = 7.87% with a glucose concentration of 10%), the amount of pyrazines generated reached 26.56%, and this was higher than that of the other 11 model reaction groups. The effect of reaction temperature (100–150 °C), reaction time (10–60 min), and sugar concentration (5–30%) on pyrazine content was determined using the 1G group. The results of this study indicated that the effect of temperature on pyrazine production was higher than that exerted by reaction time and glucose addition. The pyrazine content reached the maximum at a reaction temperature of 140 °C. The degree of reaction and pH value were also determined; the results demonstrated that accumulation of pyrazines was suboptimal when the pH of the system was dramatically decreased. For the overall reaction, the pyrazine content remained similar to that of the final products; however, the pyrazine content exhibited little correlation with the intermediate products in the MR.