Passive Drying Of Porang Tuber Slices (Amorphophallus oncophyllus) Syamsinar Rahmia (1), Junaedi Muhidong (2), Salengke (3), Amran Laga (4)
Universitas Hasanuddin, Jl. Perintis Kemerdekaan KM 10 Makassar 90245, South Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Abstract
Drying is an essential process for food preservation by reducing food losses of agricultural products. Porang tubers are one of the potential food product that have a high economic value and many various benefits for the food industry. The commercial product of porang tubers is slices dried or chipss dried. Passive drying mechanism that utilizes sunlight in the drying chamber with a natural airflow mechanism. The tool used is a direct passive solar box dryer. It is a small box made up of plywood, with a transparent cover on it. Direct type passive drying is a drying machine in the drying chamber with an airflow mechanism where direct sunlight enters the drying chamber. The drying process is carried out by placing the sample at the top, middle, and bottom of the drying chamber with used a size of slices are 2x2x0.8 cm. The objectivity of thus study was to determine the drying characteristic of porang tuber slices and to fitting of suitable drying model. The methods using the pre-drying treatment is non-blanching and blanching with 60 Celcius temperature control. The simplest method for blanching is immersion for a few minutes in boiling/near-boiling water used water bath. Three drying models using for evaluated compatibility are Newton, Henderson & Pabis, and Page. The results of the analysis showed that the value of moisture content in porang slices was 6.07% (wet basis) and 4.72% (wet basis) with a total drying time of 1680 minute, respectively. Page model with the equation of Moisture Ratio {MR = exp (-kt^n)} is the most suitable model for the blanching method of temperature control 60 Celcius. The constanta value of Page equation is obtained as follows: k = 0.002624, n = 1.101326, and R2 = 0.997551.
