Characteristic process variables during the osmotic dehydration of stone fruits: experimental values and correlations between components contents

ANABEL RODRÍGUEZ; MARIA MARCELA RODRIGUEZ; RODOLFO HORACIO MASCHERONI

Journal of Food Process Engineering

John Wiley & Sons Inc

Año: 2015 vol. 38 p. 415 - 425

1745-4530

Stone fruits (plums, peaches, nectarines, cherries and apricots) are widely consumed fresh or processed. Osmotic dehydration dipping of food pieces in hypertonic solutions - is often usedas a pretreatment to further conservation procedures for these fruits. Usually, it is characterized determining the variation with time of water loss and solution solids gain. Both variables depend of food size, shape, structure and process conditions, and there are no general correlations for their variation. As an alternative, it is important to develop relations between water and soluble solids contents independent of product characteristics and process conditions. We developed: - Experimental values of relevant variables for stone fruits dehydrated in glucose or sorbitol; - Linear correlations between water content and soluble solids for stone fruits dehydrated in sugar or polyalcohol solutions and a general linear correlation between them that allows to characterize both properties with only one rapid determination (of any of both).