Effect of pre-treatment, preparation techniques and pressing techniques for bottle gourd juice

Abstract

The experiment was carried out to study the effect of pre-treatment, preparation techniques and pressing techniques on the physico-chemical, microbial and sensory quality of bottle gourd juice during six months of storage. For the preparation of bottle gourd juice, experiment was conducted with twelve treatment combinations comprising of three different factors with different levels of microwave pre-treatment (A1- without pre-treatment, A2- 30 seconds and A3- 60 seconds), preparation technique (B1- shredding and B2- crushing) and pressing technique (C1- complete pressing and C2- single strength pressing). Each treatment in the experiment repeated trice using a completely randomized design with factorial concept. The results showed that bottle gourd slices treated with microwave for 60 seconds (A3), shredded (B1) and pressed at 0.25 kg/cm² (C2) yielded the best bottle gourd juice with high ascorbic acid, antioxidant activity and overall acceptability. This juice can be stored for six months without significant quality changes. These developed technologies can be commercially adopted by the food processing industry for producing bottle gourd juice.