EFFECT OF DRYING METHODS ON MOISTURE SORPTION, MICROSTRUCTURE AND OTHER QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF CHICKEN CUBES

Extended chicken cubes were dehydrated using freeze drying (FD), vacuum drying (VD), hot air drying (HAD) and solar drying (SD). The bulk density, colour and rehydration ratio varied significantly (p?0.05) with the drying method employed. Rehydration ratio was highest for FD samples which exhibited highly porous microstructure. SD, VD, HAD samples exhibited flaky, fibrous and compact micro structures respectively showing significant variation in pore size and distribution. The sorption behaviour was analysed and different mathematical models were used to fit the sorption data. The sorption isotherms were Type II sigmoidal. GAB model gave the best fit to the experimental adsorption data of FD and VD chicken cubes while Peleg and Halsey models gave the best fit to the adsorption data of HAD and SD samples respectively. The study concludes that VD can produce chicken cubes with quality comparable to that obtained via FD and superior to HAD and SD samples.