Dried Fish Case Study

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Results and Discussion Effect of treatment on drying characteristics of catfish The Drying characteristics study is necessary to determine the drying parameters that could prevent extended drying time which may impair the quality of dried fish. Effect of processing parameters on moisture content (MC) and moisture ratio (MR) relative to drying time is presented in Table 2, while drying rate (DR) and the relationship between DR and MC curve patterns (to determine the drying rate period) are represented in Figures 1 and 2, respectively. Drying time in all treatments approximately ranged from 20-28 h. The moisture content of samples after brining at drying time zero ranged from 68-78.9%. The higher the brine concentration, the lower the moisture content of samples. Sample of catfish in treatment 1, involving the higher brine concentration (9%) and brining time (90 min) before the actual drying (at time zero) had a lower MC…show more content…
This implies that brining aids osmotic removal of free water from fish tissues. Omodara and Olaniyan (2012) made a similar observation in studying the effect of pretreatments (blanching; salting; sugaring) and drying temperatures (40-55 oC) on drying rate and quality of small cuts of C. gariepinus. Equal MR value (1.0) was obtained in all treatments at time zero contrary to MC pattern. This is so because assuming the equilibrium MC; Me is negligibly small and tends to zero, the MR; (Mt–Me)/(Mo–Me) was simplified to Mt /Mo (Equations (1) and (2)). Therefore, at time t = 0; Mt = Mo implies Mt/Mo (MR) will always be 1, indicating that neither moisture reduction nor drying has occurred before heating. However, as the drying time increased, both MC and MR decreased, showing that, drying was in progress; the decrease was more with the temperature increase as a result of more heat transfer. A similar trend was reported by Sobukola and Olatunde (2011) for the drying

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