Effect of pulsed vacuum treatment on mass transfer and mechanical properties during osmotic dehydration of pineapples slices

L.A. RAMALLO; M.D. HUBINGER; R.H. MASCHERONI

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FOOD ENGINEERING

BERKELEY ELECTRONIC PRESS

Año: 2013

1556-3758

During osmotic dehydration process (OD), mass transfer kinetics and the ratio water loss/solute gain are affected by several variables: concentration and chemical composition of osmotic solution, temperature, shape and size of samples, etc. In recent years the research has focused to an additional factor: the application of vacuum pulses during the osmotic treatment in order to increase the solute uptake in food (Barat et al. 2002; Chiralt et al. 2001a), to develop engineered products (Corzo et al. 2007; Fito et al. 2001; Derossi et al. 2010) and to study the kinetics changes (Shi et al. 1995; Cháfer et al., 2001; Panadés et al. 2008; Lombard et al. 2008). Studies carried out in different fruits suggest that under some process conditions, the vacuum pulsing favors the sugar gain (Castro et al. 1998a, b; Barat et al. 2002; Panadés et al., 2006) and in other process conditions, the application of vacuum pulse favors the water loss without affecting the solute gain (Shi et al. 1995). Apparently, fruits porosity affects the mass transfer only at the beginning of osmotic dehydration (Shi et al. 1995). Pulsed vacuum osmotic dehydration (VPOD) was defined as a technique which consists of dipping the fruit into an osmotic solution and applying vacuum pressure for a small period at the beginning of the osmotic treatment followed by a longer period of osmotic dehydration at atmospheric pressure. (Moreno et al. 2004; Escriche et al. 2000).