Effect of Pre-Treatment and Blanching on Physical and Organoleptic Qualities of Dehydrated Carrot Slices Kukanoor Laxman, Jaishankar H.P.* Dept of Post harvest Technology, KRC College of Horticulture, Arabhavi *email: jaihorti345@gmail.com
Online published on 23 December, 2016. Abstract Carrot is a popular cool season crop grown throughout India. It is used as raw as well as cooked form. The preservation methods such as dehydration, canning, and pickling can be successfully adopted to preserve carrot for off-season. Carrot is rich source of vitamin Aandis a seasonal crop. Among the different methods of preservation, dehydration is one of the best and cheapest method of preservation. In this regard, a study was conducted to prepare dehydrated carrot slices. The various physical parameters like recovery, time taken for drying, rehydration ratio, dehydration ratio, reconstitution ratio and organoleptic evaluation were carried out. The highest recovery and lowest dehydration ratio were noticed in carrot slicesdehydrated with blanching for 2 minutes + steeping in 400 brix syrup + 6% salt for 2 hours. The rehydration ratio was found higher (5.04) in the slices steeped 0.75 percent KMS for 2 hours whereas the lowest rehydration ratio(2.59) wasfound in carrot slices blanched for 2 minutes + steeped in 400 brix syrup + 6% salt for 2 hours. The highest reconstitution ratio (0.57) was found in slices blanched for 2 minutes+ steepedin 400 brix syrup+ 6% salt for 2 hours. Higher scores for colour and appearance (4.55), taste (4.43) were recorded in the slices blanched for 2 minutes + steeped in 400 brix syrup + 6% salt for 2 hours (T6) whereas highest score for texture (4.46) and overall acceptability (4.55) were recorded in the slices blanched for 2 minutes + steeped in 300 brix syrup + 6% salt for 2 hours which was on par with T6. It indicated that sugar and salt treatment blends improved the organoleptic qualities (colour, taste and overall acceptability) of the product. Top Keywords Carrot, dehydration, organoleptic evaluation, syrup, brine, KMS. Top |