Dehydration of Osmosised Red Bell Pepper (Capsicum annum)

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of drying on the chemical composition of osmosised and dehydrated red bell pepper Capsicum annum (Tatase) with the intent of producing dry pepper with with improved qualities. Red bell pepper were dipped in osmotic sugar solution (60 Brix) at 40 C for 9 h at 30 min interval for the first two hours and at 1 hour interval for the remaining seven hours respectively. The osmosised samples were then freeze dried, oven dried and solar dried. They were then analysed for their proximate composition, vitamin C content and Water Absorption Capacity (WAC). The result of the proximate composition showed that the freeze dried sample that contained, 15.30% protein, 8.77% Ash, 11.52% fat, 0.16% crude fibre and 64.25% carbohydrate was the best when compared with the raw sample (without treatment) which contained 27.27% protein, 10.79% Ash, 15.78% fat, 0.67% crude fibre and 45.49% carbohydrate. The vitamin C and Water Absorption Capacity contents were also highest in the freeze dried samples with 150 mg 100 1 g and 100% v/w compared to the raw pepper with 200 mg 100 1/100 g and 50% v/w, respectively. These results indicated that freeze drying method was the best resulting in less reduction in protein and vitamin C content and with increased water absorption capacity.