Modified atmospheric packaging of cured vanilla

Abstract

Traditional curing methods for spices are laborious and consume a lot of time. So, it was found that there is a need to standardize the parameters of curing for vanilla. In this study, an attempt was made to standardize the curing procedure for vanilla. Vanilla curing consists of four steps viz: killing, sweating, slow drying and conditioning. Sweating and drying was carried out in aconvective dryer at 45 o C, 50 o C, 55 o C and 60 o C instead of sun drying in the traditional (Bourbon) method. The quality of cured beanswas also analysed for vanillin content. The vanillin content for the five samples were 1.07%, 1.59%, 1.79% and 1.63% respectively for treatments at 45 o C, 50 o C, 55 o C and 60 o C. The sample which was sun dried had vanillin content of 1.75%. Moiosture content of the four convectively dried samples were 14%, 20%, 22% and 19% respectively. The sun dried sample had moisture content of 25%. Microbial infestation by fungus of Aspergillus sp. and Fusarium sp. was also identfied in one of the samples. Shelf life studies on cured vanilla under Modified Atmospheric Packaging was also studied with different gauge ( 125, 250, 400) polypropylene bags. The extract of vanilla was recovered by the cold extraction process and was found to have a vanillin content of 1.05% by weight.