Examination of heat treatments at preservation of grape must

Abstract

Heat treatment is a well-known process in food preservation. It is made to avoid and to slow down food deterioration. The process was developed by Louise Pasteur French scientist to avoid late among others wine further fermentation. The different heat treatments influence the shelf life in food production. In our article we present the process of grape must fermentation, as grape must is the base material of wine production. The treatment of harvested fresh grape juice has a big influence on end product quality. It is our experiments we examined the same grape must with four different methods in closed and in open spaces to determine CO₂ concentration change. There are four different methods for treatment of grape juice: boiling, microwave treatment, treatment by water bath thermostat and a control without treatment. As a result of the comparison it can be stated that the heat treatment delays the start of fermentation, thereby increasing shelf life of grape must. However, no significant differences were found between two fermentation of heat-treated grape must by the microwave and water-bath thermostat. The different heat treatment of grape must base materials was done at the laboratory in Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of Szent István University. The origin of the table grapes used for the examination was Gödöllő-hillside.