Osmotic dehydration of acerola fruit (Malpighia punicifolia L.) Original Research Article

Osmotic dehydration process was investigated in this study. This process was carried out in an incubator at temperatures of 25 and 60 °C and constant agitation. Frozen mature acerolas were blanched in water (80 °C for 3 min) and dehydrated using binary (water + sucrose) and ternary (water + sucrose + salt) solutions. The concentration of sucrose ranged from 30% to 60% (w/w) for binary solution and from 20% to 50% (w/w) for ternary solution with 10% (w/w) of salt. Responses of water loss (WL), solid gain (SG), solid gain/water loss ratios (SG/WL) and water reduction (WR) were evaluated. The best conditions were determinated by using SG/WL as a process parameter. The chosen conditions were: a binary solution with 60% (w/w) of sucrose and a ternary solution of 50% (w/w) of sucrose plus 10% (w/w) of salt, both at a temperature of 60 °C.