Effects of Different Drying Methods on Modelling, Energy Consumption and Final Quality of Tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum Mill)

Abstract

Agricultural developments mostly depend on rapidly increasing world population. Tomato is a highly nutritious vegetable. Post-harvest technologies are often applied to prolong the consumption periods of tomato. Drying is one of the oldest methods of conservation. In this study, five different drying methods (oven drying, vacuum oven drying, sensitive drying, shaded-open atmosphere drying and sun drying) was used. Drying processes were carried out with dryers at 55°C, 60°C, 65°C and 70°C temperatures. All drying trials were performed in three replications. Drying performance (drying duration, final moisture content), drying kinetics, colour analysis, energy consumption, chemical analyses were performed for all drying methods. Fresh samples reached to desired moisture contents in 20-300 hours. To define time-dependent changes in moisture contents, Page, Logarithmic and Midilli-Küçük equations were used. Page equation yielded the worst estimations. There were not significant differences in “a” redness values of fresh samples, 65-70ï‚°C of oven dryer and all temperatures of sensitive dryer. Sensitive dryer yielded the closet pH values to fresh samples. Based on current findings, it was concluded that oven drying, and sensitive drying were suitable for drying Selinus tomato variety.