Impact of initial moisture content levels, freezing rate and instant controlled pressure drop treatment (DIC) on dehydrofreezing process and quality attributes of quince fruits

Abstract

Abstract Dehydrofreezing process involves water partial removal before freezing. This treatment has been proposed in order to reduce the negative impacts of conventional or even accelerated freezing, especially on the textural quality of high water content fruits and vegetables. Indeed, in such cases, freezing and thawing processes result in severe damage of the integrity of product’s cell structure due to the formation of ice crystals. For this purpose, quince fruits (7\u2009g H2O/g db) were subjected to convective air drying of 40\u2009°C and 3m/s to reach different water content levels of 2, 1, and 0.3\u2009g H2O/g db. Freezing profiles obtained at various freezing rates (V1, V2, and V3) for different water contents allowed the main freezing characteristics such as the Initial Freezing Temperature (IFT), the Practical Freezing time (PFt), and the Specific Freezing time (SFt) to be assessed. The impact of freezing rate was important on PFt and SFt, and more pronounced for high water contents (W between 7 and 2\u2009g H2O/g db (dry basis)). Furthermore, IFT decreased sharply when initial sample water content decreased. Indeed, it started at −0.8\u2009°C for W\u2009=\u20097g H2O/g db, while it reached a value of −8.2\u2009°C for samples of W\u2009=\u20091g H2O/g db. Since convective air drying normally triggers shrinkage which causes a detrimental deformation of fruit structures, instant controlled pressure drop (DIC) treatment was used to improve the texture and enhance the whole dehydrofreezing performance and the final frozen-thawed product quality. Moreover, DIC implied a slight increase of PFt compared to untreated ones. On the other hand, quality attributes were estimated through the assessment of thawed water exudate (TWE g H2O/100\u2009g db), color and texture (maximum puncture force as index of firmness): freezing rate and water content had great impacts on TWE. Hence, the lower the water content, the weaker the TWE. Furthermore, the TWE of the pre-dried quince (0.3\u2009g H2O/g db) had higher value for DIC-textured samples than for the un-treated ones. Indeed, DIC-texturing leads to a well-controlled structure expansion of the cell wall. These textural changes resulted in more lixiviation of residual water. Consequently, water becomes more available, hence more releasable after thawing. Finally, the partial removal of water by air drying before freezing remarkably reduced the negative impact of freezing/thawing processes on final quince color. Decisively, the firmness of quince fruit increased with the decrease of water content level. Abbreviations: DMC: Dry Matter Concentration (%); DIC: Instant controlled pressure drop; W: Water content dry basis (g H2O/g db); IFT: Initial Freezing Temperature (°C); PFt: Practical Freezing time (min); SFt: Specific Freezing time (min); TWE: Thawed Water Exudate (g H2O/100\u2009g db); L, a, and b: Color coordinates; (L): The degrees of lightness; (a) and (–a): The redness (a) or greenness (−a), respectively; (b) and (−b): The yellowness (b) or blueness (−b), respectively; ΔE*ab: Total color difference; L0, a0, and b0: Color coordinates of fresh or dried quince samples; SD: Standard Deviation; ANOVA: Analysis of variances; LSD: Least Significant Differences; cp: Specific Heat of the product depending on composition (dry material and water content)(KJ/kg K); cpd: Specific Heat of the dry material (KJ/kg K); cpW: Specific Heat of water (KJ/kg K); V1: Freezing rate without insulation; V2: Freezing rate with a food stretch film insulation with thickness e2\u2009=\u20093\u2009mm and thermal conductivity λ2\u2009=\u20090.17 W/m K; V3: Freezing rate with a versatile flexible insulation (Armacell) with thickness e3\u2009=\u200913mm and weak thermal conductivity λ3\u2009=\u20090.036 W/m K; vd: Volume of dry material of quince sample (mm3); vH2O: Volume of quince sample water (mm3); vt: Total volume of quince sample (mm3); e0: Quince sample thickness (mm); e2: Insulation thickness in the case V2; = 3\u2009mm; ; e3: Insulation thickness in the case V3; = 13\u2009mm; ; λ0: Quince sample conductivity (W/m K); λ2: Insulation conductivity in the case V2;\u2009=\u20090.17 W/m K; ; λ3: Insulation conductivity in the case V3;\u2009=\u20090.036 W/m K; λd: Conductivity of quince sample dry material (W/m K); λH2O: Conductivity of water (W/m K); λequiv: Equivalent conductivity of quince sample versus water content (W/m K); mi and mf: Weights of the frozen and thawed samples, respectively