The Sensory Center at UMN led by Dr. Zata Vickers is tasked to determine how IPL treatments affect sensory attributes of pasteurized food ingredients and products. Much of this project’s sensory research involves descriptive analysis training and testing. We have trained about 10 panelists to use a calibrated scale for aroma intensity (Figure 1) and a separate calibrated scale for flavor intensity. These panelists have developed a vocabulary to describe the sensory attributes of milk powders (and fluid milks) pasteurized with intense pulsed light (Figure 2). They participate in test sessions (Figure 3) to document the intensity of all the sensory attributes in each powder sample. Besides the increases in umami taste produced by the intense pulsed light process (Figure 4), our panelists also found increased amounts of overall aroma, cardboard aroma, animal aroma, barn aroma, metallic aroma, chemical aroma, smoky aroma, sour milk aroma, burnt aroma, umami taste, overall flavor, cardboard flavor, smoky flavor, musty flavor, brothy flavor, and burnt flavor.
