Physical, chemical, and sensory properties of spray-dried powder from whole mandarin (citrus unishiu) fruit juice

Abstract

Mandarin is the most common citrus fruit, which is popular among the people due to its delicate flavor. Scientifically it has been identified that the mandarin peel possesses more health beneficiary compounds than the sac. This study was aimed to produce a spray dried whole mandarin fruit powder and identify the chemical, physical properties, storage stability, and sensory profiling. Furthermore, the study was carried out to fill the knowledge gap concerning the whole fruit of mandarin. Three different juice samples were used for the spray drying and subsequently analyzed the powder samples (S1- Whole mandarin fruit juice, S2- Removed flavedo fruit juice and S3 - Removed whole peel fruit juice). Maltodextrin was used as the wall material for spray drying of the juice. The whole fruit powder was produced from spray drying, and the conditions used were; inlet temperature 170 ºC, outlet temperature 90 ºC, Flow rate 600 ml/h and core to wall material ratio of 1:2. From the results, higher total soluble solids (TSS) were identified in whole mandarin juice (7.03 ± 0.0). Furthermore, Total phenolic content (TPC) and antioxidant capacity were significantly high (p < 0.05) in powder produced from whole mandarin fruit. (27.84 mg GAE/g DW, 118.8 mmol TE/g DW respectively). From HPLC analysis, hesperidin was identified as abundant flavonoid, which gives the bitter flavor. It was discovered that there was a significant difference (p < 0.05) in hesperidin concentrations between the sample powders (PS1- 34.4 ± 1.7 μg/g DW, PS2- 20 μg/g DW and PS3 - 8.7 μg/g DW). In addition, major volatile compounds were identified through SPME GCMS, and D-limonene was identified as the abundant volatile, which gives the citrus flavor. Nevertheless, between the powder samples, there is no significant difference (p>0.05). and concentration of D-limonene for PS1, PS2 and PS3 were 0.27 ± 0.6 mg/g DW, 0.2 ± 0.0 mg/g DW and 0.1 ± 0.1 mg/g DW respectively. Powder with the whole fruit juice disclosed more storage ii stability during the 60 days of storage at low temperature (4 ºC). Descriptive sensory profiling concluded that there was no significant difference in citrus flavor and sweet taste (p > 0.05) but there was a significant difference in color, bitter and sour taste (p < 0.05) among the powder samples. However, the whole fruit powder gave more health beneficiary chemicals and was relatively more stable during low-temperature storage.