Basil Drying Performance and Quality under Different Drying Systems
E.G. Khater and A.H. Bahnasawy""
Abstract
The main aim of this study is to investigate the possibility of drying the basil plants under five different drying systems. The obtained results indicated that the accumulated weight losses of basil plants were 77.43, 74.00, 70.48, 74.92 and 77.99 %, for sun-drying system, shadow-d rying system, room-drying system, solar-drying system and oven-drying system, respectively at the end of experimental period. The highest values of equilibrium moisture contents were 13.94 and 37.01 % at 10 and 90 % equilibrium relative humidity was found from Modified Chung-Pfost equation under room system. The lowest values of equilibrium moisture contents were 0.83 and 15.07 % at 10 and 90 % equilibrium relative humidity was found for modified Oswin equation for oven system. The basil oil content values were 5.918, 7.911, 8.472, 6.547 and 5.230 % for the sun-drying, shadow-drying, room-drying, solar-drying and oven-drying, respectively.
Key words
Basil, Sun-drying, Solar-drying, Oven-drying, Equilibrium moisture content, Oil content
Key words
Basil, Sun-drying, Solar-drying, Oven-drying, Equilibrium moisture content, Oil content