At 10:29 PM 2/26/2011, you wrote:
A great discussion of maple syrup especially the post by Richard
Dufresne on its production.
Does the region in which the maple trees grow affect the flavor of
the syrup? I ask this because the wine growers talk about the
desirability of using French oak for wine barrels (or Hungarian
oak), but the tree is Quercu robur, what we call English oak.
Apparently where it grows makes a difference.
Bill Plummer
Southern Tier of New York
The makeup of the soil, including available mineral content, as well
as microflora which could tweak the tree's metabolism and ratio of
proteins, as well as temporal variables like climate, all could
determine the subtleties of the maple syrup. These would be
essentially the same effects present with wine grapes. Differences
in mineral elements like boron and manganese would affect catalytic
reactions and the ratios of products produced. Many of these
components are produced in tiny quantities, and have powerful effects
on perceived taste. It's not uncommon for flavor and fragrance
chemists to discover that a minor component that was previously
attributed with having a critical effect on flavor is replaced by one
present in lower quantity, but with greater potency.
The golden reference on the Internet for flavor chemicals is the
Leffingwell site:
http://www.leffingwell.com/
How chirality affects flavor perception:
http://www.leffingwell.com/chirality/chirality.htm
Chirality reflects on the handedness of how individual atoms or
groups of atoms of otherwise identical structures are
connected. Think of going from 2D to 3D. The site has rotating 3D
chemical structures on it. Here is the page for sotolon, which also
has a description of the odors, including desirability and odor threshhold:
http://www.leffingwell.com/chirality/sotolon.htm
Richard F. Dufresne
2119 US 220 Alternate South
Candor, North Carolina 27229 USA
910-974-4009
Alternate e-mail: [email protected]
World of Salvias:
<http://www.eclectasy.com/gallery_of_salvias/index.htm>http://www.worldofsalvias.com/
No attachments over 1 meg without a heads-up post, please
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