THE INFLUENCE OF OSMOSIS TREATMENT ON THE DRYING PROCESS OF APPLES.

The main cause of perishability of fruits and vegetables is their high water content. Many methods or combination of methods were used in order to increase their shelf life, osmotic dehydration being one of them. In this study, cubes of 10 mm were cut from peeled apples and subjected to osmotic dehydration at 30°C and 50°C and over a range of 1 - 3 hours in two sugar based osmotic solutions (30% and 50%). The evolution of water activity (aw), dry matter (DM) and total sugars parameters during osmotic dehydration of apple cubes were monitored. Fresh apple was considered control. It was found that osmosis pretreatment proved to be beneficial for the final characteristics of dried apple. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]