Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES-TARIM BILIMLERI DERGISI, cilt.22, sa.4, ss.480-491, 2016 (SCI-Expanded)
The aim of the present study is to pre-cool artichokes which were placed in the cases after weighing 5 +/- 0.005 kg, from 23.5 +/- 0.5 degrees C which is field temperature to the storage temperature of 1 degrees C through using three different pre-cooling methods such as air blast, hydro and vacuum. The cooling method, which has the shortest pre-cooling time, is the vacuum pre-cooling method with 35 minutes. This was followed by hydro with 58 minutes and air pre-cooling method with 135 minutes. When pre-cooling systems were analyzed in terms of energy consumption, vacuum pre-cooling system was determined to have the lowest energy consumption with the value of 0.38 kWh, which was followed by hydro pre-cooling with 0.65 kWh and air pre-cooling system with 0.84 kWh. Based upon an evaluation carried out in terms of power consumption of the systems, air blast pre-cooling method has the minimum power with the value of 0.37 kW, which was followed by hydro and vacuum pre-cooling methods with the respective values of 0.48 kW and 0.65 kW. Following pre-cooling operations, it was observed that there is 2.83% weight gain in the products exposed to hydro pre-cooling. However, 1.03% and 1.88% weight loss was found to occur after pre-cooling operation in artichokes pre-cooled by means of air blast and vacuum. Artichokes pre-cooled through air blast, hydro and vacuum or those which are not pre-cooled were maintained for 30 days in modified atmosphere room while they were hold for 15 days in room conditions; moreover, they were analyzed related to weight loss, hardness, degradation rate and overall appearance. Accordingly, it was determined that the most suitable pre-cooling method is vacuum pre-cooling; this was followed by artichokes pre-cooled though vacuum and hydro or those not pre-cooled.