Influence of drying methods on the texture profile characteristics of the button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus

摘要

Button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) fruitbodies were subjected to six different drying methods, namely sun-drying, tluidized-bed drying, freeze-drying, dehumidifying air-cabinet drying, cabinet-drying and osmo-air drying to study their effects on different textural profile characteristics namely, firmness, firmness strength, cutting force, cutting strength, fracture force and fracture energy. The button mushrooms dried by the freeze-drying method showed least firmness with mean firmness force 2.06 Nand strength 6.18 N-mm. Highest firmness was observed in mushroom fruitbodies dried by osmo-air drying method. High cutting strength, in terms of cutting force of 93.40 N and strength of 105.89 N-mm, was observed for those dried by the osmo-air drying. Minimum force of 1.89 N and energy of 2.91 N-mm was sufficient to fracture the freeze-dried button mushrooms where as the highest values of fracture force and energy were observed for the osmo-air dried mushrooms. In terms of retention/improvement of thetexture in the button mushrooms, osmo-air drying gave firm mushroom, while freeze-drying method was the best in providing soft texture.