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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Albany, California » Western Regional Research Center » Healthy Processed Foods Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #213520
Title: Drying and Quality Characteristics of Fresh and Sugar-infused Blueberries Dried with Infrared Radiation Heating

Author
item SHI, JUNLING - NORTHWEST AG UNIV, CHINA
item PAN, ZHONGLI
item McHugh, Tara
item Wood, Delilah - De
item HIRSCHBERG, EDWARDS - INNOVATIVE FOODS, SF, CA
item Olson, Donald

Submitted to: Lebensmittel Wissenschaft und Technologie
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/6/2008
Publication Date: 10/9/2008
Citation: Shi, J., Pan, Z., Mc Hugh, T.H., Wood, D.F., Hirschberg, E., Olson, D.A. 2008. Drying and Quality Characteristics of Fresh and Sugar-infused Blueberries Dried with Infrared Radiation Heating. Lebensmittel Wissenschaft und Technologie. 41:1962-1972.

Interpretive Summary: Infrared heating was studied for drying fresh and sugar-infused blueberries. The research results showed the infrared heating can significantly reduce drying time and produced high quality products compared to hot air drying.

Technical Abstract: We evaluated the finished product quality and infrared (IR) drying characteristics of fresh and sugar-infused blueberries dried with a catalytic infrared (CIR) dryer. IR drying tests were conducted at four product temperatures (60, 70, 80, and 90oC) to evaluate the drying rate, and the color and texture of the finished product. Fresh blueberries dried with convective hot air drying at 60oC were used as control for comparison. The experimental data of moisture changes during IR drying were modeled with eight different models, including Page, modified Page, Thompson, Newton, Wang and Singh, and Henderson and Pabis, and two models developed in this study. The Thompson model showed the best fit to all experimental data. The CIR drying produced firmer-texture products with much more reduced drying time compared with hot air drying. For fresh blueberries, CIR drying conserved drying time by 44% at 60oC. The effective moisture diffusivity ranged from 2.24×10-10 to 16.4×10-10 m2/s and from 0.61×10-10 to 3.84×10-10 m2/s for fresh and sugar-infused blueberries, respectively.