Drying Klunzinger's mullet fish Planiliza klunzingeri using Halogen Dryer and modeling the moisture content with artificial neural network

Abstract

Salted and unsalted Klunzinger's mullet Planiliza klunzingeri were dried using infrared halogen dryer with different temperatures (60, 65, 70, 75 and 80)°C and different storage periods (0, 7, 14, 21, 28 and 35) days and studying their qualitative characteristics. The results showed that the moisture content decreased as drying time increased. The drying efficiency of the halogen dryer was 70.36 % at 60 °C and decreased as the drying temperature increased. Chemical composition of dried fish (salted and unsalted) showed that the moisture percentage was decreased, but the percentage of protein, fat and ash was increased after drying process. The percentage of moisture increased during the storage periods (0, 7, 14, 21, 28 and 35) days, unlike the other chemical composition percentages were decreased with increasing storage periods. The results showed that the rehydration was decreased with the increase of drying temperatures for salted and unsalted dried fish. Moreover, the results showed that there was an increase in TBA after the drying process and during the storage periods. In addition, the results revealed that the microbial content of dried salted and unsalted fish was decreased. The results illustrated that the first order model can be used to predict pH value during storage periods. Artificial neural network (ANN) model had a good result of predicted moisture content.