Abstract
We have investigated the amount of drying aid required to produce amorphous coconut treacle powder through spray-drying. Maltodextrin (DE-10) was used as the drying aid. Three different formulations of coconut treacle maltodextrin: water (30%: 20%: 50%, 35%: 15%: 50% and 40%: 10%: 50%) were spray dried at inlet andoutlet temperatures of 165°C and 65°C, respectively. Powder recovery in a pilot scale spray-dryer was used as ameasure of the ease of spray-drying for a given formulation. The spray-dried coconut treacle powder was characterized for moisture content, water activity, sugar profile and particle morphology. The best powder recovery (58.6±3.5%) was obtained for the formulation of coconut treacle: maltodextrin: water in the ratio of 35%:15%:50%. The initial moisture content and water activity value of the spray-dried coconut treacle powder were 1.04±0.003% and 0.43±0.00%, respectively. It was interesting to note that both the moisture content and the water activity of treacle powder did not vary significantly (p>0.05) on storage of one year. The scanning electron micrograph of spray-dried coconut treacle powder showed that the particles were spherical in shape The morphology of these particles apparently gives a good indication of the coconut treacle powder being amorphous. The sugar profile of this coconut treacle powder showed that it had a total sugar content of 88.2±0.05% out of which 46.6±0.02% was sucrose, 23.0±0.02% was glucose and 18.6±0.01% was fructose.
Highlights
There are many food products that have very high sugar contents
A zero powder recovery was observed in the case of formulation of treacle: drying aid: water in the ratio of 40:10:50 since all sugar solids in the formulation were lost as wall deposits
When the drying aid percentage was increased from 10% to 15% and 20% the total recoveries rose to 60.2±2.90% and 57.8±3.5%, respectively
Summary
There is a growing interest to convert them into more useable and stable forms such as powders, it is very difficult to convert such sugar-rich foods into particulate form due to the presence of a high proportion of low molecular weight sugars in their composition (Bhandari et al, 1997; Adhikari et al, 2007). This results into low glass transition temperatures of sugars, which is attributed to be the main reason for stickiness (Vega et al, 2005). Received 13 December 2013; Revised 17 February 2014; Accepted 27 February 2014; Published Online 15 June 2014
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