Dehydrate Pitaya in a Dehydrator/Pitaya Drying Process

Jul 16, 2021

Introduction to pitaya：

Pitaya grows rapidly in warm and humid environment with sufficient light. It should be watered more in spring and summer, and drained in rainy weather. Pitaya can endure 0 ℃ low temperature and 40 ℃ high temperature, and the optimum temperature for its growth is 25 ℃ - 35 ℃. Pitaya can adapt to a variety of soil, water and fertilizer conservation of neutral soil and weak acid soil is better.

Pitaya processing steps：

1. Wash and slice pitaya
The flesh red pitaya fruit, which is 80% half ripe (with certain hardness) without pathological changes, is selected for cleaning and peeling. The peel can be used for extracting pigment. Cut pitaya into pieces with thickness of 0.6-1 cm.
2. Color protection and hardening of Pitaya slice
Immerse in the prepared solution containing blood acid and citric acid to inhibit the activity of oxidase, prevent discoloration and reduce the loss of vitamin C. Dissolve the hardener, dilute it into a certain proportion of solution, soak pitaya slices in the hardener solution for a period of time, and take them out for the next process.
3. Blanching Pitaya
The Pitaya slices were soaked in 0.3% sodium sulfite solution for 5-10 seconds, then blanched in 90 ℃ - 100 ℃ water for 3-5 minutes, and then rinsed in tap water for cooling, subject to the removal of hardening and blanching residues.
4. Eliminate itchy throat and vacuum sugar stains
If pitaya is not properly treated, the itchy throat will affect the taste of Pitaya preserved. In order to eliminate the itchy taste, citric acid was added with appropriate salt and treated at a certain temperature for a period of time. Vacuum sugar infiltration, according to the ratio of sucrose: starch = 1:1, adding 0.3% citric acid and certain water to prepare 45% sugar solution, vacuum sugar infiltration, sugar soaking for 1-3 hours.

Pitaya drying process：

Put the soaked pitaya chips on the plate, put them on the material truck, and push them into the drying room until the syrup on the surface of the chips is no longer sticky. Set the temperature and humidity parameters of the dryer. The higher the baking temperature, the worse the color and taste of preserved fruit. The best drying temperature is 55-75 ℃ for 16-20 hours. When drying, the two channels in the drying room should pay attention to the material balance to make pitaya pieces evenly heated. Large pitaya 12 kg can be made into 1 kg pitaya dry, small pitaya 14 kg can be made into 1 kg pitaya dry.

Recommendation of pitaya dryer/drying machine

Commercial 100-3000kg/h large amount of dehydration wide application and easy operation

Heat pump drying machine use the principle of inverse Carnot cycle. It absorbs low-temperature heat energy in the air, which becomes high-temperature heat energy after efficient heat collection and integration by the heat pump system, and is transported to the drying room for cyclic heating and drying of materials.It refers to exhausting the hot and humid air in the drying room directly to the outside of the drying room through dehumidification device, and then replenishing natural fresh air.

Hot air circle drying machine belongs to high temperature heat pump unit. Its working principle is: the working fluid of the heat pump is compressed by the compressor, becomes high temperature and high pressure gas, enters the condenser, condenses and liquefies the heat, and is used for air heating in the drying room. The moisture in the material is vaporized and evaporated by the form of hot air, and the evaporated water vapor is discharged by the moisture discharge system, thereby achieving the purpose of drying the drying material.