Abstract

URFALINO, D. P  and  WORLOCK, J. Optimización de hornos industriales para deshidratado de ciruelas. RIA. Rev. investig. agropecu. [online]. 2014, vol.40, n.1, pp.60-66. ISSN 1669-2314.

Prunes are produced by dehydration in drying tunnels. To achieve competiveness in external markets companies must increase quantity and quality of this raw material processed. This attempting not to modify the existing installations or increasing excessively production costs. With the objective of optimizing the running of the installations and increasing production capacity, two trials were designed. In the first trial two different tunnels working at 78ºC and 82ºC were compared. In these, temperatures and humidities reached between the fruit, temperatures registered on the oven displays, the time of residence of the plums in the ovens, final humidity, output and pulp quality were determined. In the second trial 8 ovens were controlled working at a fixed 82ºC with 2 different sizes (small and large). In these temperature and humidity parameters between the fruit during processing and the time of residence in the ovens were evaluated. In the first trial the maximum temperatures between plums in the ovens never reached the maximum temperatures registered on the displays. The times of residence in the ovens at 78ºC and 82ºC showed statistically significant differences. The increase of 78 to 82ºC caused a reduction on the time of residence. No significant differences were registered in final humidity, output and pulp quality of the final product obtained. In the second trial the mean maximum temperature between small sized plums was 3ºC higher than larger sizes, whilst the minimum mean humidity between small sized plums was 3% lower than large sizes. Statistically different times of residence were observed, depending on the sizes evaluated. Therefore, working with ovens differentiating sizes allows increasing the temperature in a controlled way hastening the process of dehydration without suffering loses in quality.

Keywords : Ciruelas d’Agen; Ciruelas pasas; Temperatura; Humedad; Tiempo de residencia; Plums d’Agen; Prunes; Temperature; Humidity; Time of residence.

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