Drying of fresh organic beef with differnt pretreatments

Drying of foods is one of the oldest food preservation techniques, but it gains particular importance when regarding food quality and shelf life. Meat snacks are of growing interest because they are high in protein but low in fat and carbohydrates. In organic food production the use of preservatives is limited, and for this reason product specific drying strategies and pretreatments are essential. In this study fresh beef slices were treated with salt (0,5 % and 1 %) and salt and vinegar (0.5% and 5 %) and were dried at 70 °C in a convection dryer. Moisture content and color were measured during the drying process alongside visual to near infra-red hyperspectral images of the slices. The optimal wavelengths for moisture content and color were determined and the best optimized models visualized. For moisture content the MUCVE-PLS model was the best prediction model (minimum R2 = 0.95 /RMSE = 1.20, maximum R2 = 0.98 /RMSE = 0. 12 in the test models), for a*-value prediction the PLSR model was the best (minimum R2 = 0.91 /RMSE = 1.21, maximum R2 = 0.93 /RMSE = 0.30 in the test models). Results show that low cost optical systems can be utilized for the online and non-destructive monitoring of the drying process to describe drying kinetics and monitor quality parameters.