Effect of adding ball-milled achenes to must on bioactive compounds and antioxidant activities in fruit wine.

This study reports the utilization of ball-milled achenes in fermentation to increase the levels of ellagic acid and total phenol content, as well as to enhance the antioxidant capacity of strawberry wine. Achenes were micronized using ball-milling process, and then added to strawberry must prior to fermentation. The effects of the addition of ball-milled achenes on the ellagic acid and total phenol content in strawberry wine were determined, and the free radical scavenging and iron chelation activities were also analyzed. Quality attributes and acceptance were studied in comparison with a leading commercial strawberry wine for market application. The particle sizes of achenes were reduced from 1.1 mm to 400 nm after 30 min of ball-milling, and this led to an increase in the amount of extracted ellagic acid from 550.72 to 915.24 μg/g. The addition of ball-milled achenes to must led to a 19.72 % and 52.37 % increase in ellagic acid and total phenol content in strawberry wine, respectively. The increase in bioactive compounds resulted in increases of 54.09 %, 51.49 % and 56.97 % in ABTS and DPPH radical scavenging, and ferrous ion chelating activities, respectively. Although the commercial strawberry wine showed greater aroma intensity, no significant differences in overall quality and acceptance among the conventional process, added ball-milled achenes and the leading commercial strawberry wines were found. This study demonstrates that supplementation of ball-milled achenes in fermentation can be beneficial in increasing the levels of bioactive compounds and antioxidative capacity, indicating a good market potential.