Drying studies of Garcinia Cambogia

Abstract

Kodampuli (Garcinia cambogia) is a tropical fruit commonly known as Malabar tamarind and belongs to the family Clusiaceae earlier known as Guttiferae. It is an essential ingredient in all the seafood loving kitchens of Kerala, the coastal South Indian state. Fresh and mature kodampuli fruits procured from farms were subjected to three different drying methods namely; sun drying, solar drying and convective drying. The study involves understanding drying kinetics of kodampuli and post harvest behavior of dried kodampuli rinds. The first major step involved drying of procured fruit samples by above stated methods at different temperatures and then obtaining a drying curve for each method. The time taken to reach moisture content below 25% was compared by drying curve analysis. Convectively dried kodampuli rinds at high temperature reached the desired moisture content faster as expected. The second step involved the quality analysis of dried rinds in terms of acid content (hydroxy-citric acid), texture and colour parameters. Acid content for each of the samples deceased with respect to time and samples dried at higher temperature had low acid content. The analysis of force- deformation curve shows that values of samples dried at high temperature have a rough texture as compared to low temperature dried rinds. Colours of the samples were mainly dark brown except convectively dried samples which were a bit blacker. Sensory analysis done by a panel ranked convectively dried rind at 70 0 C the best.