Determination of ethanol in chocolate shell pralines and filled chocolates by capillary gas chromatography.

The paper describes a simple gas chromatographic method for quantification of ethanol in distillates of chocolate shell pralines and fillings. The samples were prepared in two steps. The first step consisted of ethanol distillation from the product and the second involved capillary gas chromatography of 10% v/v distillate with expected ethanol content between 0.06% and 2.5% w/w. Quantification was carried out using iso-propanol as internal standard. The range of linear method response was 0.05-3.16% w/w of ethanol, which corresponded to products with ethanol content between 0.5 and 31.6% w/w. The detection limit was 0.0158% w/w and the quantification limit was 0.058% w/w of ethanol with the relative standard deviation of 2.5%.