Materials, Methods & Technologies, Volume 8, 2014

Rezumat: Drying is one of the mostly used food preservation techniques, which reduces moisture content sufficiently to prevent bacterial growth. One of the drying methods that gained popularity in recent years is microwave drying. Accordingly, in this study, microwave drying behavior of mushroom slices in various thicknesses was studied experimentally for various microwave power levels. In the study, 90W and 360W were selected as microwave power level, and 2mm, 4mm and 6mm were selected as slice thickness. During the experiment, the amount of moisture removed from the product was determined by weight measurements with a scale mounted to microwave oven. Experimental results show that microwave power has a significant effect on the drying rate of product and decreases the drying time considerably. The results also show that the effect of slice thickness is relatively small as compared with the microwave power level. The results also indicate that the Midilli et al. model is an appropriate model to describe the moisture content during microwave drying of mushroom slices. A color analysis was also conducted in this study in order to examine the effect of microwave drying on product quality in terms of color. The results show that there is a decrease in the color quality of the product due to the microwave drying.