Drying of Pomegranate Seeds (Anardana) under Different Conditions

Drying of the 'Bassein Seedless' cultivar of pomegranate was carried out under different conditions with different pre-treatments to produce value added product known as 'anardana', a valuable commodity used as condiment in the acidification of chutneys and certain curries particularly in the Northern part of India. Experimental evidence regarding drying characteristics and organoleptic quality suggested that the optimum tray load for efficient and economical drying was 1.25 kg/m(2). Pomegranate seeds blanched for 5 min in boiling water gave the best quality anardana having bright maroon colour under sun drying as well as under cabinet drying conditions. Mean values for moisture differed significantly in sun-dried (15.73%) and cabinetdried (9.33%) samples. Anardana samples had 3.4% more acidity in the cabinet dried product than in the sun dried product irrespective of the pre-treatment used. Nonenzymatic browning was maximum in cabinet dried pre-treated samples (steam blanched along with sulphuring). Similarly, anthocyanin content differed significantly among different samples and was maximum (0.907) in steam-blanched cabinet-dried samples and minimum in sun dried control samples. In organoleptic evaluation also the overall mean score for cabinet dried samples was significantly higher (7.42) than sun dried samples (6.27). With regard to pre-treatments, no statistically significant difference was observed for overall organoleptic quality of anardana samples. In general, drying was faster and quality of anardana was better in a cabinet dryer as compared to sun drying.