Thin layer high vacuum distillation to isolate the flavor of high-fat food

A modified vacuum distillation apparatus to isolate volatiles from lipid food matrices was systematically evaluated using neutral synthetic oil (Miglyol 812) spiked with 14 flavor compounds. Thin layer high vacuum distillation showed good recovery for most of the flavor constituents of the model mixture. The recovery was linearly correlated with the product of the octanol/water partition coefficient, logP and boiling point when the lactones were excluded. The same linear relationship was found for lactones, but the slope of the regression line was much steeper. The mean recovery of delta-dodecalactone was 5.1%, indicating the limit of the method.