Effect of Thermal treatment on some physico-chemical properties of tender coconut water

Abstract

Coconut water (Cocos nucifera) is good source of nutrients and rich in mineral content. Now a days it is becoming popular in beverage industry due to its high nutritional value and some potential therapeutic properties. Spoilage of coconut water mainly due to microbes enzymes present in it. This spoilage can prevent by killing microorganisms and inactivating enzymes in the sample. Recent days, conventional heat treatment place important role to inactivate enzyme and microbes due to its higher efficiency to inactivate microbes, enzymes and less cost of operation. This experiment was conducted at Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, IIT Kharagpur. The effect of thermal treatment of tender coconut water (Cocos nucifera) on physicochemical properties (viz. pH, total soluble solids (TSS), titrable acidity, total color difference, turbidity) were studied during this research work. The process conditions for thermal treatment were temperature (80, 85, 90, 95 oC) and treatment time (2.5, 5, 7.5, 10 min). The results obtained from this study showed that the thermal treatment showed negligible effect on pH, TSS, titrable acidity of TCW but significantly (p < 0.0001) affected the total color difference, turbidity. Further, the results were compared with physicochemical properties of tender coconut water after UV-C light treatment in literature. The results were suggested that, the loss of quality attributes is more in thermal treatment as compared to UV-C treatment.