Abstract:
Drying is one of the most important steps for plant materials to be used in medicinal
and dietary products. There are various methods of drying, such as using the sun,
oven, solar, warrn air oven and freeze drying. The quality of turmeric powder
obtained from the sun dryer, oven dryer and air conditioning dryer was studied. Fresh
turmeric rhizomes were processed into powder, and samples were generated from the
turmeric powder by using sun drying, oven dryng and air conditioning drying. The
processed turmeric powders were subjected to the effect of drying methods on
turneric quality parameters. Results showed the oven-dried turmeric significantly
showed lower moisture content (62%) compared to air conditioning dried (73%) and
sun-dried (8.7%) samples. The oven-dried method showed 50.9% more phenolic
compounds than sun drying and 20.0o/o more than air conditioning drying. The ovendried
turmeric exhibited the highest water absorption capacity (3.24glmI), which was
37.9% higher than sun-dried (2.35 g/ml) and 16.5% higher than air conditioning dried
(2.78 glml) samples. The oven-dried turmeric showed the lowest titratable acidity
(2.12%), which was 25.6o/o lower than sun-dried (2.85%) and 9.4Yo lower than air
conditioning dried (2.34%) samples. Among the quality index analysis of tutmeric
samples oven-dried method achieved the highest value than the sun-dried method and
air conditioning dried method. Therefore, oven-drying is used to produce turmeric
powder for better nutrient and quality retention.
