Effect of different treatments on the preference of apple cubes dehydrated by a combined process

Abstract

The aim of this work was to determine the effect on consumer preference of dehydrated apple cubes caused by different modifications of a combined drying method. The combined process of convective–osmotic drying with pretreatment in solutions of CaCl₂ and citric acid was taken as the basic process, and was then modified to obtain six different treatments. The factors varied were the osmotic agent, the order of drying processes, and the addition of CaCl₂ to the osmotic solution. The drying kinetics of convective–osmotic treatment and the osmotic–convective process were studied. A sensory evaluation was conducted to determine the effect of these alterations in the drying process on the consumer preference for the product. The convective–osmotic treatment significantly reduced the time of processing. Water loss and solids gain were higher when fructose was used as the osmotic agent in the convective–osmotic process. According to the results of the preference test, only one of the modified processes showed significant preference compared with the basic process.

Keywords::

• Apple cubes
• osmotic dehydration
• convective drying
• combined processes
• preference
• sensory evaluation

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support given by FOMIX (Federal and State Mixed Supports) to carry out this research, DGO-2002-C01-4309. The MSc student participating in this project received a scholarship from CONACyT (National Council for Science and Technology).