Pengeringan hirisan mengkudu dengan udara panas dan dinyahlembap

A. Samsudin dan A. Shafie

Abstract

Removing water vapour in the drying chamber by condensing process could accelerate the drying process. This dehumidification technique was effective in drying sliced noni fruit at 40 °C. Better drying performance could be obtained by increasing the drying temperature to 50 °C and reducing the air relative humidity to 40%. The exponential drying curves were obtained while correlating between moisture content and drying rate, and drying time. Drying using dehumidified dryer to lower the temperature of product by 2–3 °C below the drying temperature produced better coloured noni powder with the L*, a* and b* values of 60.69, 2.59 and 23.02 respectively. The pH value of the powdered solutions was 4.5–4.6 i.e. slightly higher compared to that of fresh fruit. Laboratory study on dehumidified drying of sliced noni at 40 °C and 50 °C took 9 hours and 7 hours respectively. The drying time was extended to 12 hours when the capacity increased to about 20 kg. About 15% of the dried product was recovered after drying to the final moisture content of about 4.5%. The cost of producing 1 kg of dried sliced noni was estimated at about RM30.

Full Text (701 KB)