Study on Post-Harvest Handling of “Wuluh” Starfruit (Averrhoa bilimbi L.) as a Raw Material to Produce Asam Sunti Powder Using Spray Dryer

Abstract

Asam sunti is a kind of unique and popular seasoning in tradisional food that made of the dried “wuluh” starfruit. Recently, asam sunti become popular widely, not limited only in Aceh, therefore it is need to produce asam sunti in powder form such as tumeric powder, pepper, chili and some other spices. The problems in making asam sunti powder is the lack of quality standards of semi-wet asam sunti to be the raw material for powder asam sunti. The quality of wet asam sunti is greatly influenced by the level of ripeness of “wuluh” starfruit and its moisture content. Hence necessary to study the influence of fruit maturity level and mechanically drying temperature to produce of a semi-wet asam sunti which is the raw material of powder asam sunti. The purpose of this research is to determine a maturity level of fruit and the best drying temperature to produce semi-wet asam sunti and then to define of spray dryer temperature and addition of dextrin to produce asam sunti powder that meet with consumer preferences. The study was began by measuring the physicochemical properties of “wuluh” starfruit at three levels of maturity fruit, with parameter of color, size, firmness, total acid, and oxalic acid as the preliminary data from fresh sampel. The second stage of research was done to determine of drying time based on the final moisture content which is close with the moisture content of the control sampel (asam sunti from Aceh). The third stage of research was done to perform drying process of “wuluh” starfruit using a cabinet dryer with drying time based on the results of the second stage, and follow by the last stage to study of producing asam sunti powder using a spray dryer. The best semi-wet asam sunti according to consumers’ preferences are made from a half-mature starfruit (green-yellow) with the drying temperature 50 °C for 8 hours, where it has total acid 37.80%, oxalic acid 4.76% and will perform a rendemen of 50.74%. After that, semi-wet asam sunti is processed into asam sunti powder. The best asam sunti powder which is based on consumer preferences is combination of addition dextrin 30%, drying temperature 180 °C, and will produce the products with moisture content 5.14%, total acid 48.40%, oxalic acid 6.10%, and rendemen 11.28%. Meanwhile, when the local asam sunti is used as raw material for asam sunti powder, the best result based on consumer preferences should be produced by add 30% of dextrin with drying temperature of 170°C.