Convective Air Drying of Spondias Dulcis and Product Quality

Abstract

AbstractKedondong (Spondias dulcis) contains polyphenols, vitamin C and carotenoids which are beneficial to human health. Fresh kedondong has short shelf life and drying is an option to preserve the fruit in dried form to avoid spoilage. In this research, kedondong slices were dried at three temperatures (60 °C, 70 °C and 80 °C) using convective air and RH was fixed at 30 %. High drying temperature facilitated faster drying rate but resulted in poor product quality when compared to freeze dried samples. Drying rates were observed only occurred within falling rates period. Effective diffusivities were estimated in the order of magnitude 10–7 - 10–9 m2/s based on Fick’s second law. Quality assessment showed that samples dried at 60 °C had the lowest hardness and the highest total polyphenols content was observed from samples dried at 80 °C. In addition, kedondong flavour note was found favourable from samples dried at 70 °C and 80 °C based on penalty analyses.