Blueberry is known as one of the five healthiest foods in the world because of its unique fruit flavor, high antioxidant activity, and a large amount of amino acids, vitamins and other nutrients. It has the reputation of “King of Berries”. In recent years, with people’s high attention to food health, blueberry has become one of the popular fruits because of its large amount of active substances and health benefits.
Blueberry has more low molecular weight sugars, which are easy to stick and absorb moisture when drying, and are not easy to store and use. At the same time, blueberry contains a large amount of polyphenols that are sensitive to oxygen and temperature. Therefore, the choice of blueberry drying method is of great significance.
Spray drying is currently a commonly used drying method. It uses liquid material atomization to increase the contact area of water evaporation, thereby shortening the time needed to obtain powder quickly. The blueberry fruit powder obtained by vacuum freeze drying and spray drying has better quality. Through the test, the types and additional amounts of drying aids were screened, and we determined the optimal spray drying process.
The Blueberry powder obtained by the complex drying process of fresh Blueberry has the characteristics of long-term storage, easy storage, and easy to carry, and is loved by consumers.
Using blueberry juice as raw material, we optimized the spray drying process of blueberry powder, combined with the screening of maltodextrin addition, injection temperature, spray frequency, etc., to determine the optimal process parameters for blueberry spray drying: maltodextrin content 26.34%, injection temperature 152.26 ℃, yield 57.17%. The obtained blueberry powder has a uniform texture, and a distinct blueberry aroma, is easy to operate, and is suitable for industrial production, providing technical and theoretical support for improving blueberry spray drying technology and developing new blueberry products.
