Vacuum drying of concentrated malta juice for production of malta powder using RSM

The malta powder was produced using a vacuum dryer under various drying conditions. Fresh concentrated malta juice was added with methyl cellulose, whole milk powder, tricalcium phosphate and glycerol monostearate at 0.08 to 0.016, 0.02 to 0.06, 0.0025 to 0.0045 and 0.005 to 0.015kg/kg of malta solid before exposing to the different drying temperatures at 65, 70, 75, 80, and 85°C in different time intervels as 0, 20, 60, 100, 140, 260, 380, 500, 620, 740 minutes. The drying rate of sample 24 was found higher due to added ingredients of methyl cellulose, tricalcium phosphate and glycerol monostearate. The different models were fied to the experimental data to predict the drying time, the generalized exponential model was found best, the predicted drying time at temperature (85°C) and EMC (1.49%db) was 322 minutes for the sample 24 to produce good quality malta powder.