Drying of sugarcane in foam mat and physicochemical characterization of the product

Resumo

The drying foam mat is one of the alternative techniques to drying of liquid foods. The objective of the research was to study the drying kinetics for foam mat sugarcane juice and characterize chemical-physical dehydrated product. For foaming was used the combination of additives Emustab®, Super Liga Neutra® and Calcium Carbonate. The drying kinetics was studied at three different temperatures: 50, 60 and 70 °C with curves fitted by non-linear regression to empirical models Page Henderson and Newton. All models showed a good fit to drying, with determination coefficients above 0.99. The dehydrated product had an average moisture of 3.23% and average water activity of 0.360. The solubility of the product in flake form was 100% and the solubility of the product in powder form was 90.53%. So, it was technically feasible the dehydrated cane juice production to foam mat drying technique with microbiological and chemical stability and the possibility of rehydrated in 100%.