Innovations in the processing of berry raw materials using osmotic dehydration technology on the example of strawberries

Osmotic dehydration is an important unitary operation to transform the perishable fruits, fruits, berries in new products with added value and longer shelf life. The main goal and task was to study osmotic dehydration in combination with the combined technology of processing of vegetable raw materials. Objects and methods were the fresh berries of the strawberries, as the osmotic agent used hypertonic solution of sucrose, in the process studied the activity of water, solids, moisture loss, mass, vitamins (C, ? -carotene, PP), carbohydrates, organic acids, energy value and macronutrients (K, CA). As a result of scientific research, it was found that after osmotic dehydration of berries, weight reduction and moisture loss amounted to 23-26%, water loss to 26%, a solid gain above 4%. The choice of a temperature mode has a linear dependence on moisture loss in drying time of osmo-dehydrated berries. Studied and determined the threshold water activity for most microorganisms, outside of which, slow down or stop the process of their growth, therefore, the activity of the water in osmo-dehydrated berries amounted to 0,578 and the resulting product refers to the product with low humidity. On organoleptic characteristics of osmo-dehydrated, berries correspond to requirements of normative legal acts. The energy value of osmo-dehydrated the strawberries increased by about 13%, mass fraction of sugar in an average of less than 30% than in the candied fruit, acidity decreased by 38%. Changes in vitamin content and macroelements in the osmo-dehydrated berries have a positive trend; the loss during the combined processing was insignificant and amounted to only about 5%. Thus confirmed the positive effect of the combined technology for the processing of berry raw materials with application of preliminary dehydration in hypertonic sucrose solutions with convective drying.