DOI: 10.36347/sjet

Pages: 334-340

Infra-red drying has in recent times been of use due to the potential for obtaining quality dried foodstuffs. To reduce losses associated with mangoes and sweet potatoes, infra-red dryer was employed in drying mango-sweetpotato leather. Cured sweetpotatoes were dextrinized in an oven and the edible portion removed and homogenized to obtain slurry. The slurry was added to mango puree in various proportions and dried in an infra-red dyer for 45, 50 and 55 oC for 1, 1.5 and 2 h with different tray loads of 100, 150, 200 g to study the drying characteristics using the infra-red dryer. The values obtained were fitted to four thin layer drying models. The effect of dextrinized sweetpotatoes on the drying characteristics of infra-red dried leathers has been investigated. Generally, all the drying processes occurred in the falling rate period. The Henderson and Pabis model best described the thin layer drying characteristics of infra-red dried mangosweetpotato leathers. The high ko values of 4.032 × 106, 4.20 × 106 and 4.342 × 106 ( h-1) show low resistance to moisture loss. Based on ko and Ea values, the suitable temperature for drying mango-sweetpotato leathers is 50 oC.