Hydration behavior of chia seed and spray drying of chia mucilage

Chia seeds (Salvia hispanica), rich in omega-3 fatty acids, were soaked in water with different seed to water ratios at 60 degrees C for 10 hr. Mucilage was extracted using a stirrer at 2,000 rpm for 6 hr and centrifuged. Total soluble solids of collected gel was increased to 1% using maltodextrin and homogenized. Chia seed mucilage powder was produced by using laboratory-scale spray dryer at various temperatures, feed flow rates, and air flow rates. Effect of spray drying air temperature, feed flow rate, and air flow rate on chia mucilage powder cyclone recovery was studied to find the best combination of spray drying parameters to get high cyclone recovery. Seed to water ratio of 1:30 gave reasonable hydration yield with minimum water leftover. Combination of low drying air temperature, high pump flow, and high air flow (150 degrees C, 475 ml/h, 54 m(3)/h) gave good cyclone recovery of chia seed mucilage powder. Practical applications Aim of this study is to produce chia mucilage powder using spray drying. Chia mucilage powder is made successfully through spray drying technique using very low quantity of maltodextrin even (to adjust mucilage to 1 degrees Brix only). However, maltodextrin does not give any merit to the resultant spray dried product, generally. Best combination of spray drying parameters were 150 degrees C, 475 ml/h and 54 m(3)/h. They yielded chia seed mucilage powder cyclone recovery of 19.33%. With these spray drying process parameters, it is commercially viable to produce chia mucilage powder with low maltodextrin incorporated. The developed spray dried chia seed mucilage powder is white in color and suitable for all industrial applications in preparing food products, namely, bread, energy bars, tortilla chips, cake mixes, omega-3 enriched ready-to-eat cereal, chia flakes ready-to-eat cereal, omega-3 enriched pasta, chia pasta, muffins, cookies, snack bars, fabricated chips, energy drinks, etc.