Secagem da polpa de pitanga e armazenamento do pó.

Abstract

This work was developed with the objective of producing powdered pulp of red Brazilian cherry (Eugenia flora Surinam cherry) from the whole pulp, characterizing and studying its stability through the evolution accompaniment of its properties during 60 days of storage, in two types of packing — plated and polyethylene —at room temperature. The emulsified pulp was dried using stove with air circulation at 50, 60 and 70ºC and the data was fitted by the equations of Page, Henderson & Pabis and Lewis. The powdered red Brazilian cherry used in the storage tests was dried at 70ºC. The characterization of the whole pulp consisted of determining moisture, total solids, ascorbic acid, soluble solids (ºBrix), pH, titratable acidity, total sugars, reducing sugars, non-reducing sugars, density, leached ashes and color. The powdered pulp stored was observed every 10 days as to determine the moisture, mass, ascorbic acid, pH, titratable acidity, reducing sugars, nonreducing sugars, total sugars and color. Powder samples were used for determining the moisture adsorption’s isotherms, and the data was fitted using the equations of Peleg, GAB and Oswin. During the storage period, the ascorbic acid and the titratable acidity were reduced in the samples in the two packages while the moisture content was kept constant in the plated packing. In the color parameters, the brightness and the redness and yellowness suffered reductions, resulting in darkening of the materials. Plated packages were found to protect the samples better within the storage period. Thus, a better conservation was achieved in this type of packing. Of the equations used for the fittement of the drying kinetic, the Page equation presented the highest values of R2, indicating a better adjustment to the observed data. The data of the moisture adsorption’s isotherm had the best adjustments using the Peleg model.