Optimisation and Validation of the “Strathclyde Simulated Mouth” for Beverage Flavour Research

Flavour is perceived as the result of partition and equilibrium of volatile odorants of a food during consumption. Research previously carried out with whisky has been restricted to sensory and conventional chemical analyses, which have made a contribution to understanding the process, but cannot show what happens when whisky is consumed. Dynamic headspace methods are required to take a step further into understanding the phyco-chemical interactions that take place in the mouth of the consumer or laboratory assessor. Buccal headspace analysis has been used for whiskies, but cannot be used for model systems of non-food materials. The “Simulated Mouth” was therefore designed and constructed to imitate the mouth. Operation of the simulated mouth was optimised using buccal headspace analysis as a reference method. Parameters that were taken into consideration were: the flow rate of hydrated air through the simulated mouth cavity, presence of artificial saliva, the size of the vessel, the amount of whisky used, the use of glass beads to simulate teeth, shaking or static condition, and the time for collection of volatiles. The simulated mouth showed systematic changes in a series of samples of different maturation times. The arrangement of the model and the methodology should also be appropriate for study of flavour release from other liquid systems.