ElsevierAgudelo Sterling, CM.; Igual Ramo, M.; Talens Oliag, P.; Martínez Navarrete, N. (2015). Optical and mechanical properties of cocona chips as affected by the drying process.
AbstractThe effect of the application of a pre-osmotic treatment to obtain hot air dried cocona (Solanum sessiliofurum Dunal) chips was studied. The drying kinetics and the optical and mechanical properties of cocona chips obtained by the combined method of osmotic dehydration and hot air drying (OD+HAD) and by only hot air drying (HAD) were compared. Samples were dried by hot air at 60ºC. For the combined method, they were pre-dried to a moisture content of 75 g water /100g, immersed in a 55 ºBrix sucrose solution at 25ºC for 48 minutes. The pre-osmodehydration applied did not influence the subsequent hot air drying kinetics, resulting in a final product with 0.055 ± 0.005 g water /g cocona. The optical properties of OD+HAD chips were more favourable, exhibiting a smaller color change with respect to the fresh fruit (±15 units) than the HAD samples (±23 units). On the other hand, the OD+HAD chips presented more fracture peaks than HAD ones, this related with a structure with a higher degree of crispness, a very desirable property for a chip product.