The Effect of Wood Type on the Organoleptic Properties of Smoked Atlantic Herring (Clupea harengus)

Abstract

This study assessed the effect of four different types of wood on the organoleptic properties of smoked fish. Frozen Atlantic herring Clupea harengus(‘shawa’ in local parlance), dry wood of mango(Mangifera spp.), kolanut (Cola spp.), teak (Tectona grandis)and guava(Psidium spp.) were obtained from Bariga Market in Lagos State. Each of these woods was used to smoke the fish for a period of one and half hours (1.5 hr) in a smoking kiln. All the smoked fish did not contain any filth or dirt. The organoleptic assessment of the smoked fish showed that there were slight sensory differences in taste, aroma, appearance, and colour of the smoked fish due to the different types of wood used but was not statistically significant (p>0.05).However, fish smoked with kolanut wood (Cola spp.) had the highest rating for taste (5.00), aroma (5.00), appearance (4.8) and colour (4.8) and was consequently judged the best. Variations in the proximate composition of the smoked fish using each wood were observed. However,
differences in the protein (23.07 %) and oil (10.90 %) contents of all the smoked fish were not statistically significant (p>0.05) though they were lower when compared to the unsmoked counterpart (protein (46.0%) and oil
(16.1%)) while the ash and crude fibre contents increased significantly (p<0.05) in relation to the unsmoked fish (1.18 and 1.68% for ash and crude fibre, respectively). Results from this study can be used by the fish processing industry for consumer preference analysis.