Vacuum application with water jet technology in drying button mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus)
La Choviya Hawa1), Mohamad Efendi1), Hanna Habibah1)

1)Agricultural Engineering and Biosystem Department
Universitas Brawijaya

Abstract

Button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) is the most popular mushroom commodity in the world because of its deliciousness, texture, and nutritional value. However, the high water content in this product makes it perishable so that drying as a preservation method is carried out. This study aims to evaluate the vacuum drying method based on water jet technology by observing the physical quality and drying kinetics of slice button mushrooms. Drying was controlled with a constant pressure of 130 mbar with temperature variations of 50, 60, and 70C. The sample used was slice button mushroom with a thickness of 5 mm which was blanched in ascorbic acid solution. The result show that vacuum drying can reduce water content up to 6.01 until 15.15 percent wb with an average drying rate of 0.17 until 0.18 percent wb per min. ANOVA test showed that the variation of drying temperature and blanching treatment had a significant effect on all observed physical parameters (moisture content, surface area, hardness, and color). At the end of drying, changes in physical parameters were observed, including surface area (19.98-38.45percent), hardness (54.45 until 536.95 g), and color with indicators L (25.45 until 71.01), a (minus 2.52 until 15.44), and b (5.63 until 29.38). Based on the accuracy test, the best drying kinetics prediction models are the Two-term and Wang-Singh models.

Keywords: button mushroom, drying kinetics models, vacuum drying, water jet technology

Topic: Agricultural engineering