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Salty Flavour Standard
The Salty Flavour Standard is a professional sensory reference used to identify, measure, and control the saltiness of foods and beverages.
Developed under GMP-certified conditions, this standard helps sensory professionals, brewers, and quality teams maintain flavour balance and product consistency.
Used globally across the brewing, food production, and beverage manufacturing industries, it’s an essential tool for sensory training and quality assurance.
We ship globally – shipping costs may apply depending on your region
Minimum Order: £275
WHAT IS SALTY FLAVOUR?
Salty is one of the five basic tastes, alongside sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. It is a natural component of many food and beverage products, contributing to their overall taste profile.
In beverages, salty flavour can arise from:
- Flavourings: Ingredients or additives used to enhance taste.
- Raw Materials: Such as malt or brewing liquor.
- Deliberate Additions: Salt may be intentionally added to achieve a specific taste balance.
A balanced level of saltiness enhances mouthfeel, clarity, and flavour depth — while excessive saltiness can indicate contamination or process imbalance.
WHAT CAUSES SALTY OFF-FLAVOUR?
A salty off-flavour may appear when the mineral or sodium content becomes excessive or uncontrolled.
Common causes include:
- Poor tank and system cleaning – residual salts can solidify on tank walls and later dissolve into new batches.
- Raw material variation – excess sodium or chloride compounds in malt or flavourings.
- Source water issues – brewing liquor with naturally high mineral content.
These issues can disrupt the intended taste profile, making it essential to monitor and control salt levels during production.
HOW TO USE THE SALTY FLAVOUR STANDARD FOR SENSORY TRAINING
1. Prepare the base beverage — typically a neutral beer or water sample.
2. Add the standard following the dilution guidelines provided with your kit.
3. Evaluate the sample during your sensory session.
4. Record, compare, and calibrate perceptions within your panel.
This process helps professionals:
- Recognise and describe saltiness accurately.
- Calibrate sensory panels to industry standards.
- Identify and troubleshoot off-flavours caused by sodium imbalance.
HOW TO RECOGNISE SALTY FLAVOUR: SENSORY TERMS
When identifying salty flavour, sensory professionals often use the following terms:
- Salty: The primary descriptor for this basic taste.
- Sea Salt: A more specific reference to the type of saltiness.
- Basic Taste: Refers to salt as one of the fundamental taste categories.
These terms are critical for clear communication during sensory analysis and quality control.
WHAT ARE THE PROFESSIONAL APPLICATIONS OF THE SALTY FLAVOUR STANDARD?
The Salty Flavour Standard is widely used in industries such as:
- Brewing: To ensure the correct balance of flavours in beer and other malt-based beverages.
- Food Production: For calibrating salt levels in processed foods.
- Beverage Manufacturing: To maintain consistency in taste profiles across product lines.
- Sensory Training Programs: To train sensory panels and quality control teams.
By incorporating this standard, professionals can enhance their ability to detect, describe, and control salty flavours in their products.
OTHER INFORMATION
Flavour Wheel Number: within 0150 range
Flavour level seen: 200 mg / l
Recommended flavour standard / sensory reference standard of: American Society of Brewing Chemists (ASBC) and the European Brewing Chemists (EBC)
For more information or to explore additional flavour standards, contact FlavorActiV today.
FlavorActiV GMP Flavour Standards
Only Pharmaceutical Quality GMP Flavour Standards provide sufficient quality for professional sensory panels to train and validate with.
We produce encapsulated GMP (Pharmaceutical Good Manufacturing Practice) Flavour Standards that are safe to both smell and drink. The compounds within our capsules impart the aroma, taste and mouthfeel of a specific defect or positive flavour into a beverage for the purposes of taster training, calibration and quality control.
Our individual flavour GMP Flavour Standards are sold by flavour, each flavour pack contains 5 capsules, each separately blister packaged. Our sensory kits contain a mixture of flavours, each separately blister packaged, read the product description for flavour details.
We ship globally, and have over 20 years of experience at it. Our GMP Pharmaceutical Flavour Standards are produced to the highest standards, and as such, their shelf-life is strong and their quality consistent.
FlavorActiV’s flavour centre is the world’s only pharmaceutically run facility dedicated to the production of flavour reference standards. The Flavour Centre is a state-of-the-art facility housed within the campus of world-renowned Quay Pharma near Liverpool in the U.K.
The Flavour Centre was designed by FlavorActiV from the ground up at the direct request of global customers as they looked to move away from inferior food grade ‘certified flavour standards’ to GMP Pharma, a standard that ensures safe, stable, traceable, consistent and long shelf-life products.
All FlavorActiV’s industry-leading encapsulated flavour standards are manufactured following GMP at our Flavour Centre. All aspects of manufacture are overseen by Quay Pharma who are audited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory agency (MHRA). We also welcome customer audits.
Only FlavorActiV GMP flavour standard capsules bear our mark of authenticity.
We brand each of our capsules so that our customers know they’re getting the Pharmaceutical GMP Quality that only FlavorActiV provide.
Industry leading packaging and shelf-life
FlavorActiV flavour standards are blister packaged, which extends shelf-life and protects capsules from potential contamination. The average shelf-life of FlavorActiV flavour standards is 18 months to 4 years, depending on the flavour compounds.
We will never ship in pots or plastic packaging, here’s why…
Blister packaging protects capsules from the environment until they are ready for use. Blister packaging greatly reduces the amount of headspace for possible flavour escape. As each capsule individually blister packaged, making use of one capsule still leaves all others protected. FlavorActiV Flavour Standard packaging is 100% recyclable, as opposed to polypropylene which is not widely recycled.
Pots are semi-porous, they allow molecules to pass through and flavour to be lost, their significant headspace also adds to substantial flavour escape as a gas, even when using just one capsule all those remaining in the pot are exposed.
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