The fate of ochratoxin A during the Pekmez production from mouldy grapes

The grape juices produced from mouldy grapes that are contaminated naturally with OA between 2.1 and 9.8 μg/l were used in pekmez production. In the processing steps of pekmez, changes in OA amount were examined. The amounts of OA in pekmez samples were found to be 5–6 times higher than OA amount of grape juice. The dry matter (%), total sugar (%) and pH values were 18.93, 17.82 and 3.36 at the beginning of the experiment while they were 71.42, 67.35 and 3.91 at the end of the experiment, respectively