Spray-drying of coconut treacle into an amorphous powder

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 and outlet temperatures of 165°C and 65°C, respectively. Powder recovery in a pilot scale spray-dryer was used as a measure 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.