Drying characteristics of selected local vegetables

Abstract

Fresh tomatoes, okra and pepper were uniformly sliced to 1cm thickness and dried using cabinet and vacuum oven drying at 45oC to moisture contents of 12.5% and 11.8% for tomatoes, 13.0% and 12.0% for Okra, 11.0% and 10.5% for Pepper. Weight loss at 5 minutes interval and consequently the drying rates at every 30 minutes were observed. The dried products were also analyzed for bulk density, viscosity, pH and
rehydration. The sensory evaluation of the dried samples, using preference test showed that drying with cabinet drier gave an acceptable
result for tomatoes and okra in terms of colour and texture. For pepper, better-dried products were obtained with vacuum oven drying in terms
of colour. There was no significant difference in shrinkage by the two drying methods in all the samples at both 1% and 5% levels of probability.