EVALUATION OF QUALITY ATTRIBUTES OF DEHYDRATED FIGS PREPARED BY OSMOTIC-DRYING PROCESS | ||||
| Egyptian Journal of Agricultural Research | ||||
| Article 24, Volume 92, Issue 1, March 2014, Page 337-348 PDF (448.93 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/ejar.2014.154842 | ||||
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| Author | ||||
| MANAL A. EL-GENDY | ||||
| Food Technology Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Giza, Egypt. | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| This study was carried out to evaluate the quality attributes of osmotic-dried figs pretreated with various types of osmotic date syrup (40, 50, 60 and 70% syrup), compared with the quality attributes of untreated figs (control). The figs pretreated with date syrup 70% had the lowest dehydration time for osmotic figs followed by date syrup 60, 50, and 40%, respectively. The physicochemical properties, microbiological assessment and quality attributes of osmotic-dried and control figs just after processing and during the storage for 6 months were also evaluated. Results indicated that osmotic-dried figs pretreated with date syrup 70% had the highest retention of ascorbic acid followed by date syrup 60, 50 and 40%, respectively. Reducing sugars content of the final product was ranged from 51.69 to 56.50% for osmotic-dried figs in all various pretreatment processes. While, the corresponding values of fibers were ranged from 9.53 to 9.75%. The untreated dried figs (control) had the highest total bacteria count (9.1x102 cfu/g), while the osmotic-dried figs pretreated with date syrup 70% recorded the lowest total bacteria count (2.6 x102 cfu/g). On the other hand, both total count of bacteria and total count of yeasts and molds were proportionally decreased with extending the storage period and reached to the maximum reduction after 6 months of storage. The osmotic-dried figs pretreated with date syrup 70% recorded the highest sensory scores of color, texture, taste, flavor and overall acceptability followed by osmotic-dried figs pretreated with date syrup 60, 50 and 40% and the untreated figs (control) immediately after processing and during the storage at ambient temperature. Therefore, pretreatment of figs with osmotic date syrup to produce osmotic-dried products played an important role in producing higher quality dried figs compared with the untreated dried figs. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Dehydrated figs; osmotic dehydration; sensory evaluation; microbiological assessment | ||||
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