REUSE OF SUCROSE SYRUP IN PILOT-SCALE OSMOTIC DEHYDRATION OF APPLE CUBES

Osmotic dehydration (OD) treatments of apple cubes were carried out in a pilot plant, which consisted of an OD vessel, a filter, a vacuum evaporator, and recirculating pumps. The osmotic solution (OS) was maintained at 59.5 ± 1.5 °Brix and 50C by reconcentration in the evaporator, and suspended particles were eliminated by filtration. OS was reused to process 20 batches of apple cubes, maintaining a constant OS/fruit ratio of 5/1 (w/w) by addition of new OS. Evolution of pH, titratable acidity, soluble solids, water activity, color, reducing sugars, and microbial load in the OS was evaluated along the OD process. The OD parameters and the apple color were determined. Values of the physicochemical properties of the OS stabilized after 10 treated batches. A microbial load of 2590 ± 330 CFU/mL was observed in the OS at the end of 20 OD treatments. Water loss, solids gain and color of dehydrated apple cubesobtained in OD process with reuse of the OS were similar to those found in an OD process carried out with a nonrewed OS.     

INFLUENCE OF OSMOTIC DEHYDRATION ON THE VOLATILE PROFILE OF GUAVA FRUITS

ABSTRACT

The effect of osmotic dehydration (OD) on the volatile compounds of guava fruits was studied. Osmotic treatments were carried out at atmospheric pressure, at continuous vacuum and by applying a vacuum pulse (5 min under vacuum and the remaining time at atmospheric pressure) at different temperatures (30, 40 and 50C) and times (1, 2 and 3 h). The volatile compounds of fresh and dehydrated samples were obtained by simultaneous distillation–extraction, and were analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. In general, OD caused changes in the concentration of volatiles, depending on the process conditions. The use of lower temperatures and shorter treatment times can diminish the loss of volatiles with respect to the fresh samples. The greatest damage to volatiles loss is produced at 50C for up to 2 h under both pulsed and continuous vacuum. The lowest total volatiles loss occurred at 30 and 40C for up to 3 h under pulsed vacuum or atmospheric pressure.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Consumer demand for high‐quality products with freshlike characteristics has promoted the development of a new category, minimally processed fruits and vegetables. Although these products present, as distinguishing features, simplicity in use and convenience, they generally perish more quickly than the original raw material because of tissue damage caused by mechanical operations. The use of osmotic dehydration process has been presented as a tool for the development of minimally processed fruits. The slight water activity reduction promoted by the process may provide stable products with good nutritional and sensorial quality and with characteristics similar to those of the fresh products. The application of minimal processing to tropical fruits can represent an interesting world market. Fruit flavor is an important quality factor that influences consumer acceptability, and for this reason, its study is relevant in the minimally processed food product.

     

OSMOTIC DEHYDRATION OF KIWIFRUIT (ACTINIDIA CHINENSIS): FLUXES AND MASS TRANSFER KINETICS

Pulsed‐Vacuum‐Osmotic‐Dehydration of kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis) was studied using two kinds of osmotic solution: sucrose (65 Brix) and concentrated grape juice (63 Brix), three temperatures (25, 35 and 45C) and four vacuum pulse times (0, 5, 10 and 15 min). Experimental results enabled the mass transfer kinetics for water and solutes to be studied (compositional changes of the liquid fraction and changes in the liquid fraction/solid matrix ratio). The impregnation of samples, because of the vacuum pulse, was higher when concentrated grape juice was used as the osmotic solution, probably due to its lower viscosity. The effective diffusivity (D_e) was obtained for each experimental condition and the results show higher diffusivities for vacuum‐pulsed treatments, although differences between treatments with different vacuum‐pulse time could not be observed. D_e values were slightly greater for treatments with concentrated grape juice. The activation energies (E_o) were obtained by fitting the data to the Arrhenius equation.     

PILOT PLANT FOR OSMOTIC DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS: DESIGN AND EVALUATION

This work proposes a pilot scale equipment for osmotic dehydration (OD) of apple cubes that consists of a novel agitation‐immersion device, a bag filter and a vacuum evaporator to conduct simultaneously the OD process, filtration and reconcentration of the osmotic solution (OS). The functional method analysis was used to design the pilot plant. Apple cubes (～1 cm³) were dehydrated using a 60 ° Brix sucrose syrup OS at 50C and a syrup/fruit ratio of 5. OD was conducted either with or without reconcentration of the OS. During the OD process particles of fruit were eliminated from the OS by filtration and the OS concentration was kept at 60 ° Brix by reconcentration in the evaporator. A comparison of the dehydration parameters of apple cubes obtained at pilot scale to those obtained at laboratory scale was done to evaluate the performance of the pilot equipment. The results show that the proposed set‐up can be suitable for commercial production of osmodehydrated fruits.     

KINETICS OF OSMOTIC DEHYDRATION IN ORANGE AND MANDARIN PEELS

The nutritional and health properties of some citrus peel components such as pectin, flavonoids, carotenoids or limonene make interesting developing processing methods to obtain peel stable products, maintaining its quality attributes, increasing its sweetness and improving its sensory acceptability. In this sense, osmotic dehydration represents a useful alternative by using sugar solutions at mild temperature. Kinetics of osmotic treatments of orange and mandarin peels carried out at atmospheric pressure and by applying a vacuum pulse at the beginning of the process were analysed at 30, 40 and 50C, in 65 °Brix sucrose, 55 °Brix glucose and 60 °Brix rectified grape must. Vacuum pulse greatly affected mass transfer behavior of peels due to the greatly porous structure of albedo. So, PVOD treatments greatly accelerate the changes in the product composition in line with an increase in the peel sample thickness. In osmotic processes at atmospheric pressure, sample impregnation occurs coupled with osmotic process, but much longer treatments are required to achieve a reasonable concentration degree which assures sample stability. Low viscosity osmotic solutions seems recommendable in order to promote both diffusional and hydrodynamic transport, in vacuum pulsed pretreatments at mild temperatures.     

MODELING AND OPTIMIZATION OF OSMOTIC DEHYDRATION OF BANANA FOLLOWED BY AIR DRYING

The process of osmotic dehydration followed by air drying was studied, modeled and optimized for the dehydration of bananas, which are an extremely perishable fruit unable to withstand freezing and, as such, need to be dried in order to preserve the fruit for later use. The mathematical model was validated with experimental data and the simulations show how the operating conditions affect the process. Process optimization was performed to obtain the best operating conditions that would reduce the total processing time. The results show the advantage of using moderate to high sucrose concentrations (55–65°Brix) for the osmotic solution, reduced pressure and the use of the osmotic treatment to reduce the total processing time of fruit drying.     

A RAPID BLADE-CUTTING METHOD FOR THE EVALUATION OF OSMOTIC DEHYDRATION OF APPLES AND POTATOES

The mass transfer between a sugar solution and sample tissues of apples and potatoes was determined by evaluating the concentration profile of water and the force–distance curves obtained by a blade‐cutting method with a texture analyzer. The shape of the force–distance curves at various processing times was clearly different from that of fresh samples. First, the sample is compressed and the force increases to a “yield point” (YP) when the blade penetrates the surface. After that, the force decreases to a “minimum force point” (MFP) while cutting dehydrated tissue and increases again while cutting nonaffected tissue. The distance at the MFP showed a good correlation to the distance calculated from the concentration‐profile method and can be also used as a parameter to determine the depth of affected sample tissue at various processing time. The blade‐cutting method is much faster and easier to carry out than the concentration‐profile method. Under the used conditions of osmotic dehydration (66% w/w sugar solution, at 20 ± 2C under constant agitation and at atmospheric pressure, sample thickness = 10 mm), the time to dehydrate the samples down to the center was 6 and 3 h for apples and potatoes, respectively.     

INFLUENCE OF PRETREATMENTS AND BLANCHING TREATMENTS ON THE YIELD AND COLOR OF CANNED MUSHROOMS

Three factors in PSU-3S and SSV processes, i.e. soaking, cold storage, soaking again or vacuum hydration, which might increase the yield of canned mushrooms, were investigated. The results of experiments revealed that only cold storage time in these processes significantly affected the yield of canned mushrooms. The undesirable effect of PSU-3S or SSV processes on the color of canned mushrooms may be significantly remedied by acid blanching.