International Journal of Food, Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences ISSN: 2277-209X (Online) An Open Access, Online International Journal Available at http://www.cibtech.org/jfav.htm 2015 Vol. 5 (3) September-December, pp. 1-13/Ali and Rani Research Article © Copyright 2014 | Centre for Info Bio Technology (CIBTech) 1 EFFECT OF DRYING ON GINGER PASTE AND OPTIMIZATION OF EVALUATED QUALITY PARAMETERS OF DRIED GINGER PASTE * Javed Ali 1 and Poonam Rani 2 1 Department of Post-Harvest Process & Food Engineering, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India 2 Department of Agricultural & Food Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India * Author for Correspondence ABSTRACT The ginger is one of the oldest known major spices indigenous to India. It is widely used around the world in food as spice and is a common condiment for a variety of compounded foods and beverages. A major problem encountered during processing of ginger is blackening or darkening of color due to oxidation of phenolase enzyme activity. During thermal processing of ginger considerable amount pungent flavor loss as well as nutrient loss occurs. Due to conventional thermal processing significant product quality damage may occurs due to slow conduction and convection heat transfer and therefore shelf life of the food products may deteriorate. On the other hand, through non thermal technology, heating occurs in the form of internal energy generation within the material and shelf life of processed foods is comparable to that of canned and sterile, aseptically processed products. The present investigation was planned to study the drying and quality characteristics of ginger paste during tray drying treatment with the view keeping in mind to reduce quality losses during preparation. Paste was thermally processed at 40, 50 or 60ᵒC, respectively. The quality of dried ginger paste was investigated in terms of pH and color. Independent variables selected for the study were temperature, thickness and citric acid treatment. The optimum values of independent variables in terms of temperature, thickness and pre- treatment in citric acid for pH and color was found as 40ᵒC, 4mm and 1.5 g/l respectively. Keywords: Drying; Food Quality; Ginger Paste; Tray Dryer; pH; Colour; Thermal Processing INTRODUCTION Ginger is a tropical species native to South East Asia. It belongs to the family zingiberaceae botanically known as ‘Zingiber officinale Rose’. It’s the most popular hot spice in the world. The useful part of this plant is the underground rhizomes. It is also called as Adrak, Ada, Adraka, Allamu, Sunth etc. in various Indian local languages. India from time immemorial is the “home of spices” producing almost all the spices of the world. India alone contributes 25-30% of total world trade in spices. There are over 80 spices grown in different parts of the world out of which 50 spices are grown in India (Schweiggert et al., 2007). Ginger, in its fresh as well as dried form has been used both as a medicine and as a spice in several countries. The total production of ginger in the world in 2009-10 was 1683.00 thousand tons with the total acreage of 310.43 thousand ha. China, India, Nepal and Thailand are the major producers of ginger in the world, having production of 396.60 thousand tons, 385.33 thousand tons, 210.79 thousand tons and 172.68 thousand tons respectively (FAO, 2012). India and Indonesia have the largest area under cultivation. India has 149.10 thousand hector area under ginger cultivation contributing 36 percent of the total world production with productivity of 4.70. The total production of ginger in India is 702 thousand tons per year in 2010-11 (NHB Database, 2012). The production of ginger in Uttarakhand was 18,000 tons and area under cultivation was 2,000 ha in the year 2007-08 (Anonymous, 2010). Though ginger is grown throughout in India, Kerala is the maximum ginger producing state (about 70% of ginger production) (Purseglove et al., 1981). Ginger is mostly used in curries and in perception of curry powder, ginger bread, confectionary, ginger ale, table souse, ginger candy, preserved ginger, ginger pickling and in the manufacturing of certain soft