Kinetics of drying and quality of the apple cultivars Granny Smith, Idared and Jonagold
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Agriculture, Belgrade-Zemun, Serbia (1,2,3)
Apple is nutritionally valuable and present asf resh fruit in human nutrition throughout the year. Also appleis araw material in food processing, primarily in the production of juices, nectars, refreshing soft drinks, marmalades, jams, compotes, apple cider vinegar and dried fruits. In the last decade on the world market there is a great interest in dried apple products (commercially called applechips). During preservation by drying the technological process aimed at the final product of optimal quality isrequired. The subject of this paper is the kinetics of the apple cv. Granny Smith, cv. Idared and cv. Jonagold drying in laboratory dehydrator forthe purpose of pinpointing at which level of humidity the maximum speed of evaporation is achieved and at which level of humidity apple slices begin to change in colour and geometric shape. Parameters of the drying process were the same for all three cultivars, 3hrs at air temperature of 70oC and 5hrs at air temperature of 50o. The amount of evaporated wateris expressed in relative and absolute units of measure. The purpose of this paper is to determine which one of the three tested cultivars provides the best properties for drying, i.e. in terms of oxidation of polyphenolic compounds to find the cultivar which will provide that the final product is technologically and organoleptically the most acceptable. The results showed that the sample cv. Granny Smith expressed the least oxidation of polyphenolic compounds (browning), curved edges and shrivelled apple slices. After that the sample cv. Jonagoldfollowed. The sample cv. Idared showed the worst results. Following the drying kinetics of all three samples, it can be concluded that the cultivars Granny Smith and Jonagold were achieving the lower maximum speed of evaporation, unlikethe cultivar Idared. The cultivars Granny Smith and Jonagold have attained consistent drying and in this way the technological process was finished with a smaller temperature stress for plant tissue, resulting in a much better quality of the final product.
