VALUE ADDITION OF GRAPES USING HOT AIR DRYERS

Abstract

This study includes to study the effect of air temperature on raisins and to study the economic analysis of proposed methodology and compare the output with conventional techniques. It can be seen from the results that both the hot air dryers e.g. solar and electric dryer produce raisins in a much lower time in comparison to the traditional method of raisin dryer. Solar dryer takes 96 hours to produce raisin while electric dryer takes 15 hours for raisin production. This time frame for raisin production is much lower than that of 336 hours or 2 weeks, an average time for raisin production using traditional sun drying method. Raisin produced using traditional methods are associated with many of health issues. Generally, raisins produced using the traditional method has a risk of being rotten. Rainwater may reach the grapes that are placed for being dry in traditional method. Such raisin has a light color as its color is washed away. Customers find such raisins less attractive. Moisture content of raisins is an important parameter to evaluate the quality of raisin. Moisture content present in the market available raisin that is produced using traditional method is 25.30 %.