Characterization of Balsamic Vinegars Using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography and Gas Chromatography
Frank Mayta-Tovalino
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this study, a characterization of Balsamic Vinegars using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography and Gas Chromatography is reviewing.
I believe that it's a good review, but it still needs work to be done. It will be good to have a comparison between the HPLC methods used as well for GC methods.
The development of most paragraph is short.
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for his insightful comments.
According to the suggestion of the reviewer and also other reviewers, we have rearranged the manuscript and added comparison between the methods. The text was also thoroughly spell checked and appropriate corrections were performed.
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript reports interesting review about the balsamic vinegars analyzed by HPLC and GC. It will be of great value to readers interested in vinegars, and can be acceptable for applied sciences. However, I judged that the major revision is needed for this manuscript by followed 2 major reasons.
My major comments are as follows
1) Authors discuss the constituents detected by GC in Chapter 2 and by HPLC in Chapter 3 for each compound group. However, for example, “phenolic compounds” are described in both subsections 2.1.7 and 3.3, and it would not make much sense to separate them. It would be clearer to summarize the text described in 2.1.7 and 3.3 in the section on “phenolic compounds”. The contents of Chapters 2 and 3 should be combined and discussed for each compound group.
2) For the reasons given above, the title should be also changed: there is little reason to separate the compounds detected by HPLC and GC.
My minor comments are as follows.
1 Line 138-140 Is malic acid really non-volatile organic compounds? Boiling point of VOC is 50-260oC. Those of malic acid is 130 oC.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for valuable comments. The manuscript was rearranged with respect to the first comment, in the current version the discussion is common for types of the compounds regardless applied technique. We believe that in this case it is more convenient and straightforward to the readers.
On the other hand, we think that the information about HPLC and GC in the title of the manuscript is essential for attracting target group of readers; it is clearly described that the readers can expect description of chromatographic methods for characterization of balsamic vinegars instead of, e.g., spectometric methods and so on. Therefore we decided not to change the title of the manuscript.
Because of the rearrangement of the manuscript, malic acid is now correctly described in the section of organic acids only.
Reviewer 3 Report
Study is well organized.
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for evaluation of our manuscript.
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments for author File: 
Comments.docx
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for the valuable comments.
The use of abbreviations throughout the article was checked and corrected.
The brief introduction of the chemical composition of balsamic vinegar was added.
We have modified the article by rearranging the text as requested by the reviewer (first, GC and LC is briefly introduced with sections regarding classes of compounds).
We have modified conclusions as requested by the reviewer.
We have added further discussion regarding advantages and limitations of the studies of the most important classes of compounds.
English was carefully checked and corrected, where necessary.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
No comments
Reviewer 2 Report
It seems to be appropriately revised and I am pleased to recommend it as a paper that should be published in Aplied sciences.
