Drying Technology | 2019
Visualization of crust formation during hot-air-drying via micro-CT
Abstract
Abstract Nowadays, hot-air-drying (HAD) is the most common process for the production of dried fruits and vegetables till now. It is well known that HAD has a big influence on product structure leading to effects like shrinkage or case-hardening. While shrinkage has already been documented throughout the drying process, case-hardening or the formation of a crust has only been shown for the dried product. In this study, a three-step approach consisting of a HAD-, a freezing-, and a freeze-drying step is used to show the development of a crust of carrot discs throughout a HAD process. With this method, the crust structures created during HAD were preserved and could be analyzed in a dry state with cone-beam micro-CT measurements. Crust thickness increased significantly during HAD and crust formation started before a relative moisture content of X/X0 = 0.5.