Quality Evaluation of Virgin Coconut Oil Produced with Enzymatic Extraction using Coated Crude Papain

Abstract

Papain enzyme has been applied in the production of coconut oil. In this study, crude papain enzyme was coated with maltodextrin to observe the effectiveness of coated papain in the production of virgin coconut oil (VCO). The specific objectives of this research including to determine the effect of the incubation length and temperature of the coated papain enzyme on the yield and quality of the resulting VCO. 0.5% enzyme (w/v) was applied to the coconut milk in different incubation lengths and temperatures to produce VCO. This study applied a randomized complete design with two factors; length of incubation (6,12,18, and 24 hours) and incubation temperature (30, 40, 50 and 60 ⁰C). The findings of this study showed that based on a yield of 24.88% and a degree of clarity of 92.15%, the optimal incubation temperature for the production of VCO in this study was 50 ⁰C. The findings of the research, based on a yield of 22.56%, showed that 18 hours of incubation was found to be the optimal incubation time for the production of VCO in this study. Even though the free fatty acids and water content suggest that refinement is necessary for the quality improvement of the produced VCO, the peroxide value and iodine number of VCO in this study show a good quality with a value of fewer than three meq/kg and between 5.78-8.80, respectively.