Testing Flavor Quality of Preharvest Channel Catfish

To avoid marketing fish with environment-related off-flavors, fish must be screened for flavor quality before harvesting. Quantitative chemical analysis is inadequate for flavor quality control because of time constraints, costs involved, and the limited number of odorous compounds that can be detected with available methods. Sensory analysis (taste-testing), which treats trained “tasters” as analytical instruments, is the only applicable method for routine evaluation of fish flavor quality. Sensory analysis can detect odorous compounds at very low levels, and discriminates between types of off-flavors as well as flavor intensity. Variability and bias in sensory analysis can be minimized by proper selection and training of judges.