Osmotic dehydration of acerola fruit (Malpighia punicifolia L.)

Osmotic dehydration process was investigated in this study. This process was carried out in an incubator at temperatures of 25 and 60 °C and constant agitation. Frozen mature acerolas were blanched in water (80 °C for 3 min) and dehydrated using binary (water + sucrose) and ternary (water + sucrose + salt) solutions. The concentration of sucrose ranged from 30% to 60% (w/w) for binary solution and from 20% to 50% (w/w) for ternary solution with 10% (w/w) of salt. Responses of water loss (WL), solid gain (SG), solid gain/water loss ratios (SG/WL) and water reduction (WR) were evaluated. The best conditions were determinated by using SG/WL as a process parameter. The chosen conditions were: a binary solution with 60% (w/w) of sucrose and a ternary solution of 50% (w/w) of sucrose plus 10% (w/w) of salt, both at a temperature of 60 °C.