Influence of solar drying on the quality of three commercial valued fish species available in NE region

Abstract

Solar drying is a common method of preserving the fish products. This study was carried out to investigate the influence of solar drying on quality of fish. To this consequence, some biochemical and microbial characteristics (moisture, ash, protein, lipid, TVB-N, PV, TBA, and APC) were determined for fresh and solar dried fish of three species (Mystus gulio, Puntius sophore and Gudusia chapra). Results showed that moisture content varied between 72.55 ± 1.03 to 74.76 ± 1.01 g/100g for fresh fish and between 9.84a ± 0.61 and 13.06a ± 0.65 g/100g for sun dried fish. With regard to protein contents, fresh had lower amount between 16.24% and 18.21% while sun dried fish products had the protein contents between 63.25% and 64.69%. The entire three fresh fish sample showed lower fat contents compared to that of sun dried fish sample. The microbiological quality i.e. aerobic plate count appeared to be of less than its cut off value.