Drying Strategy of Shrimp using Hot Air Convection and Hybrid Infrared Radiation/Hot Air Convection

The main objective of the research was to study the effect of drying temperatures using infrared irradiation and electric heating convection on dehydration and was to investigate the effect of drying conditions on the quality of the shrimp. Two sizes of fresh shrimp (100 shrimp/kg and 200 shrimp/kg) with initial moisture content of 270 - 350 % dry-basis were dried under various conditions while the final moisture content of dried shrimp was in ranges between 20 and 25 % dry-basis. Hot air flow rates of 1.0 1.2 m/s, drying temperatures of 40 - 90 °C and infrared intensities of 1,785.7 - 3,571.4 W/m 2 were used in these experiments. The experimental results showed that the rate of moisture content transfer of both sizes of shrimps decreased exponentially with drying time while increasing drying temperature significantly affected to the drying kinetics and quality of the shrimps. Effective diffusion coefficients of both shrimps were determined by a diffusion model forming a finite cylindrical shape was in order of 10 -7 m 2 /s and this effective diffusion coefficient value was relatively dependent on the drying temperature compared to the initial moisture content. The quality analysis of dried shrimp using an infrared source and electric heating source found that the redness value (Hunter a-value) of dried samples using hybrid infrared radiation and electric heating had a higher colour uniformity than other drying methods. Additionally, shrinkage and rehydration properties were insignificantly different for all drying strategies (p < 0.05) and drying using infrared radiation had higher drying rates compared to electric heat convection, corresponding to relatively low drying times.