Department of Agricultural Engineering, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore-560 065, India.
1 College of Agnculture, OAS, GKVK, Bangalore-65, India.
To optimize the drying method for drying of oyster mushroom (Pleurotus florida) three different drying methods were followed viz., Solar cabinet, microwave-oven and cabinet tray drying methods. The experiments were carried out at the Department of Agricultural Engineering, UAS, GKVK, Bangalore. The rehydration ratio and sensory evaluation scores were used as criteria for evaluating the product quality. The results revealed that, cabinet tray dried (at 600C and 1%KMS pretreatment) mushroom samples were found to be good. The KMS treated samples had highest rehydration ratio and sensory evaluation scores as compared to the control (untreated) and balanced samples.
