High-pressure treatment of cloudy apple juice

A factorial design with four factors (pressure, holding time, temperature and waiting period between crushing of apple and high-pressure (HP) treatment) was built up to study the effect of HP treatment on pectin methylesterase activity (PME, EC 3.1.1.11) in cloudy apple juice. PME activity was measured by the methanol release during the storage of samples at 4 °C for 1 month. Only the holding time of the treatment and three interactions between factors (holding time×temperature, pressure×waiting and holding time×waiting) had significant effects on the PME level. Increasing the pressure or the holding time at moderate temperatures (15–40 °C) increased the activity. PME purified from apple was pressure stable in the range 100–600 MPa at 25 °C. The soluble pectin content was not changed after HP treatment. The particles size increased with the temperature reached during the treatment, in agreement with a diffusion-limited-aggregation model but were independent of pressure and holding time. In a separate experiment we found a positive correlation between the PME activity and the residual content of the catechins suggesting that polyphenoloxidase (PPO, EC 1.14.18.1) and oxidized polyphenols play a role in the PME activity level after HP treatment.