OPTIMIZATION OF OSMOTIC DEHYDRATION OF CARROT SLICES UNDER PULSED VACUUM CONDITION IN TERNARY SOLUTION BY RESPONSE SURFACE METHODOLOGY

Abstract

The osmotic dehydration (OD) is a treatment in which large portion moisture is removed to obtain minimally processed product. The use of reduced pressure at the beginning of the process is called pulsed vacuum osmotic dehydration (PVOD). In this present work, the influence of independent variables (temperature, salt, and sucrose concentration, and restoration time) on water loss (WL), solute gain (SG) and color change (CC) of carrot slices was studied by response surface methodology. Analysis of results showed that restoration time was the most significant variables (p<0.05) for WL and SG while temperature significantly influenced the Change of color parameter. The optimum operating conditions were found to be restoration time of 182.50 min, solution temperature of 40.55°C, and solution concentration of 46.88oBrix sucrose with 12.50% sodium chloride. Under this operating condition WL, SG and CC were 52.3964% (wb), 11.68% (wb) and 5.98, respectively. The predicted values for independent variables were validated by performing several experiments and the simulated data were found similar to the experimental ones.