Effects of drying on the phenolics content and antioxidant activity of muscadine pomace

Three drying technologies [i.e., vacuum belt drying (VBD), hot air drying (HAD), and freeze drying (FD)] were evaluated for the processing of muscadine pomace in terms of their impact on drying time requirement, moisture content (MC), water activity (a_w), total phenolics content (TPC), and antioxidant activity (AA). Muscadine pomace discs of two thicknesses (2 and 4 mm) were dried using 16 different time-temperature combinations for VBD, 12 different time-temperature and air velocity combinations for HAD, and one treatment for FD. The TPC and AA in lyophilised samples were 583 ± 8 and 608 ± 16 μmol GAE/g d.w. and 2.21 ± 0.15 and 2.30 ± 0.17 mmol Fe²⁺ E/g d.w. for the 2 and 4 mm thick discs, respectively. The VBD treatment of 60-80-100-100 °C for 60 min (i.e., TV2) for 2 mm thick discs showed the highest TPC value, and no significant (P > 0.05) differences were observed in AA of 2 mm thick discs dried by VDB and FD. The TPC and AA for the VBD treatment of 60-80-100-100 °C for 90 min and HAD treatment of 70 °C at 0.6 m/s for 3 h for the 2 mm thick discs were not significantly (P > 0.05) different compared to freeze dried samples. For 4 mm thick samples, the TPC and AA for the VBD treatments of 60-80-100-100 °C, 60-90-120-120 °C, 70-90-110-110 °C, 80-90-100-100 °C, and 90-105-120-120 °C for 90 min as well as 70-90-110-110 °C for 60 min were not significantly (P > 0.05) different compared to those for freeze dried discs. VBD is a promising drying technology, as the resultant products possessed high TPCs and were dried in less than ¼ of the time compared with that of FD.