Abstract:
Durian (Durio zibethinus murray) is commonly known as “king of fruit" in fruit world
which is growing South East Asian tropical region. It is highly seasonal, expensive, highly
perishable, nutrient rich and alternative bearing thorny fruit with specific odor. Usually
the durian is a restricted fruit even in the luggage area of flights, some restaurants, public
places, taxies, public transport and hotels. Generally durian consumes as a fresh fruit
without any preservation and value addition in the growing countries except Thailand and
Malaysia. Durian has great export potential but has practical limitations due to its odor
and bulky thorny husk. Therefore it needs some new preservation methods and value
added products as a solution for early mentioned difficulties. Hence spray drying is a one
of the best method which is produces wide ranges of light weight dry powders and
agglomerates by flesh dehydration. This study for explains the method and the finds some
optimum parameters to dry durian pulp using commercial scale spray dryer. The raw
durian flesh was blended with different water temperature treatments and filtered before
the spray dying. Maltodextrn was used as the microencapsulating agent. In this process
three pulp making water temperature (0 0C, 27 0C and 40 0C) of durian and three levels of
maltodextrin (10%, 20 % and 30 %) were used to identify the best treatment combination
which was resulted highest final powder yield. After Durian powder produced, the ten
physicochemical properties such as Total Soluble solids , PH , Moisture percentage, Acidity
percentage, Ascorbic acid level, Solubility , Rehydration time, Hygroscopcity, Organic
matter percentage and Ash percentage were evaluated to find the effect of treatment
combination. Six value added products such as Yoghurt, Yoghurt drink, Cake, Ice cream,
hot drink with tea and Cool drink with milk were produced by using spray dried Durian
powder. The final analysis was the sensory evaluation of the value added products for
check the marketability and acceptability. In this evaluation, 15 members were randomly
selected and given the value added products for evaluate flavour, colour, texture, smell
and overall acceptability. It was found that durian pulp can be transformed to powder
using the spray dryer. The suitable pulp extracting water temperature and maltodextrin
level were 0 0C and 20% respectively to obtain higher powder yield, higher ascorbic acid
preservation and low moisture level of the powder. The all six value added products got
more than 73% overall acceptability ranks and which is important in commercialization of
the product.
