Annals. Food Science and Technology 2014 Available on-line at www.afst.valahia.ro 259 Volume 15, Issue 2, 2014 SPRAY DRYING OF UNFERMENTED COCONUT SAP OR SWEET TODDY INTO AN AMORPHOUS POWDER Mithila Jayasundera 1 * and Rohana Kulatunga 1 1 Coconut Processing Research Division, Coconut Research Institute, Lunuwila, 61150, Sri Lanka *Email: mithilajayasundera@gmail.com Abstract This study was carried out to convert unfermented coconut sap or the sweet toddy into powder form through spray drying using maltodextrin (DE 10) as the drying aid. Three different formulations of sweet toddy: maltodextrin (70%: 30%, 80%: 20% and 90%:10%) were spray dried at inlet and outlet temperatures of 165 o C and 65 o C, respectively. Powder recovery in a pilot scale spray dryer was used as a measure of the ease of spray drying for a given formulation. The spray dried sweet toddy powder was characterized for moisture content, water activity, crystalline-amorphous nature, particle morphology, sugar profile and the keeping quality. The best powder recovery (56.35±2.90%) was obtained for the formulation of sweet toddy: maltodextrin in the ratio of 80%:20%. The moisture content and water activity value of the spray dried coconut sweet toddy powder were 1.24±0.01% and 0.29±0.00, respectively. It was interesting to note that both the moisture content and the water activity of sweet toddy powder did not vary significantly (p>0.05) on storage of one year. X-ray diffraction studies revealed that the spray dried sweet toddy powder was amorphous. The scanning electron micrograph of spray dried coconut sweet toddy powder showed that the particles were spherical in shape. The sugar profile of this sweet toddy powder showed that it had a total sugar content of 66.1±0.04% out of which 32.7±0.02% was sucrose, 22.4±0.01% was glucose and 11.0±0.01% was fructose. Keywords: unfermented coconut sap, sweet toddy, spray drying, stickiness, drying aid. Submitted: 23.06.2014 Reviewed: 30.09.2014 Accepted: 15.10.2014 1. INTRODUCTION The sweet toddy or the unfermented coconut sap is the liquid that oozes out of the coconut inflorescence which is used to prepare coconut treacle, jaggary and golden syrup. The fresh unfermented sweet toddy contains 15-18 % (w/v) sugar mainly in the form of sucrose (Athputharaja, Samarajeewa and Widanapathirana, 1980). Sweet toddy undergoes fermentation almost immediately by a group of heterogeneous micro-organisms, probably originating from the indigenous flora of palm trees, the atmosphere or the tapping equipment. It is essential that sap is preserved from spontaneous fermentation with the addition of anti-ferments such as ‘Hal’ (Vateria copalifora) bark if the sap is used to produce jaggary, treacle and golden syrup. It is reported that the anti-ferments delay the fermentation process only by 14 to 15hrs (Athputharaja, Samarajeewa and Widanapathirana, 1980). However, if sweet toddy is preserved for prolonged periods, it can be used to make treacle, jaggary and golden syrup at any period of time. One such preservation method is spray drying. Spray drying is a well-established and widely- used method for transforming a wide range of liquid food products into powder form (Adhikari et al., 2009a; Adhikari et al., 2009b; Jayasundera et al., 2010). Spray dried food powders can be stored at ambient temperature for prolonged periods without compromising the powder stability (Jayasundera et al., 2011a). They are also cheaper to transport and easier to handle in manufacturing plants. Spray drying is economical compared to freeze drying as the latter is a batch process with long processing time and is also six times as expensive as spray drying in terms of operational cost and nine times as expensive as spray drying in terms of capital cost (Chavez and Ledeboer, 2007; Santivarangkna, Kulozik and Foerset, 2007). Spray drying has many applications, particularly in the food, pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries (Vega, Goff and Roos,  2014 Valahia University Press Further reproduction without permission is prohibited