Abstract

Amorphophallus muelleri Blume (Indonesian konjac) is an annual herbaceous wild plant growing in Indonesia. It produces glucomannan, i.e., a polysaccharide hydrocolloid compound that has many benefits in various fields of industry and has high economic value. To obtain this compound, Indonesian konjac tuber has to be processed into chips, ground, and separated from the other components such as fiber and starch. The problem encountered in producing glucomannan is to find a drying method which may optimally decrease the water content in chips with higher drying rate to produce good quality of the chips. This paper proposes a drying method and to study its effect on the quality of Indonesian konjac chips. For this purpose, we consider these two main treatments; (i) soaking in sodium metabisulphite solution in pre-drying process, and (ii) drying using oven and direct sun light. Thus, we work with four combinations of treatments and then we compare the effect of each combination on the quality characteristics of the chips. The experiment shows that the combination of oven drying method and soaking method produces the best results. In this experiment, we use 1500 ppm of that solution and 10 minutes of soaking. According to our knowledge, these is an unprecedented experiment and thus the results will hopefully be a significant contribution to the literature of food engineering.

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