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E-tongue can detect white wine spoilage before humans can - EurekAlert


<p>While the electronic tongue bears little physical resemblance to its namesake, the strand-like sensory probes of the &ldquo;e-tongue&rdquo; still outperformed human senses when detecting contaminated wine in a recent study. In an experiment at Washington State University, the e-tongue identified signs of microorganisms in white wine within a week after contamination&mdash;four weeks before a human panel noticed the change in aroma. This was also before those microbes could be grown from the wine in a petri-dish. Winemakers traditionally rely on these two methods, sniffing the wine and petri-dish testing, to identify potential wine &ldquo;faults&rdquo; or spoilage. The findings indicate that e-tongue testing could augment those methods and allow winemakers to catch and mitigate problems sooner, said Carolyn Ross, WSU food science professor and the study&rsquo;s corresponding author.</p>

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