Author(s):

A Bharathkumar, SL Jagadeesh, Netravati, Veenith Hegde, G Bhuvaneshwari and H Bindu

Abstract: Dehydration of fruit and vegetables is one of the oldest techniques known to man and consists primarily of sun drying or artificial dehydration of fruits and vegetables. Fig fruits are climacteric, highly perishable, and higher in respiration rate and ethylene production. Fresh figs cannot be stored for longer period at ambient condition but the dried figs can be stored for 6–8 months. The fig varieties grown locally on a large scale (Bellary fig in Karnataka) are not yielding acceptable colour and taste in dried fig. This is partly due to natural low TSS (9 Brix) in these figs as compared to exotic fig varieties. Therefore, this study was conducted to improve quality of dehydrated fig by imposing pre-drying treatments to whole fig fruit, pricked whole fig fruit, or fruits cut as halves and quarters. The common pre-treatment was blanching (4 minutes) + 0.2% KMS (Potassium metabisulfite) + steeping in 40^oB sugar solution containing 0.25% citric acid for 24 hours. The pre-treated fruits were dried by employing solar tunnel dryer and analysed for physico-chemical and sensory attributes. The fruits cut to quarter shape showed maximum dried fruit recovery (23.52%) with minimum time taken for dehydration (83.70hours). The same treatment recorded higher L*(40.15), lower a*(9.06) and b*(19.05) value with acceptable organoleptic properties.

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