Drying Kinetics and Quality Attributes of Solar-Dried Red Peppers: A Comparative Study with Traditional and Industrial Methods

Red pepper is a valuable ingredient known for its abundance of vitamins and antioxidants. But, it usually needs to be dried for longer preservation. Hence, this research is aimed at examining the drying kinetics and quality attributes of dried red peppers utilizing various solar drying methods, in comparison with traditional open sun drying (OSD) and industrial laboratory thin layer dryers (LTLD). Analysis parameters employed include determining moisture content, measuring color properties, evaluating antioxidant capacity, analyzing capsaicinoid content, and assessing microbial presence. The drying process took place in a sunny environment with fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity as evidence of the dynamic conditions experienced within the solar dryers. It was observed that the logarithmic model was the most accurate in predicting moisture ratio over time, estimating a drying time of 25 hours to achieve 10% moisture content. The result demonstrated that direct solar dryers (DSD), indirect solar dryers (ISD), and mix mode solar dryers (MMSD) methods showed moderate changes in color parameters, with average ΔL∗, Δa∗, and Δb∗ values of -5.08, -23.71, and -13.62, respectively. The average overall color difference (ΔE) for these methods was 27.96. In addition, after comparing it to the LTLD method, which showed the highest content of phenolic compounds at 47.89%, MMSD displayed a slightly lower content of 44.71%. Similarly, MMSD exhibited higher levels of DPPH radical scavenging activity and ferric reducing power, measuring at 44.22% and 1163.75 μmol Fe²⁺/L, respectively. The capsaicin content remained relatively consistent across all drying methods, with MMSD, DSD, and LTLD demonstrating similar levels of approximately 31 mg/g. Although MMSD had slightly higher mold and yeast counts compared to LTLD, ISD, and DSD, it remained lower than OSD (less than 0.56 $$). Furthermore, MMSD showed a lower total microbial count in comparison to other drying methods. These findings suggest that MMSD shows promise as a drying technique for preserving the phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity of the dried product.