ABSTRACT

The shredded carrot was dried in a laboratory set up of refractance window drying (RWD) at a temperature of 95°C for 75 minutes. The size of the shredded carrot was maintained in the range of 1.02–1.25 mm with a commercial vegetable cutter. Before drying, the carrot was blanched in hot water at 100°C for 6 minutes. In the experimental setup, radiating energy from a reservoir of hot water at an elevated temperature of 95°C was used for drying the vegetables. The moisture content of carrot, dried for the different period, was measured by the oven drying method, and drying analysis was done by the application of Fick’s second law of diffusion and other thin layer models. The modified Henderson and Pabis model was found to be the best-fitted model with R2 of the value 0.983 and RMSE at 0.03676. Quality parameters of dried carrots like moisture content, carotene content, color measurement, rehydration ratio, texture, and water activity were determined by standard experimental procedures. From the experimental measurements, it has been found that the drying time of the sample in the RWD system was less than that with other conventional drying methods. It was also seen that the method of RWD gave a better product, as was apparent from the experimentally measured values of carotene content (499.07 ± 3.78 µg).