Abstract

Yellow variety of sweet potato tubers lots were processed with different pre-drying treatments of peeled washed chips: Unblanched without Sodium Metabisulphite (UB-SMBS), blanched without sodium metabisulphite (B-SMBS), unblanched with sodium metabisulphite (UB+SMBS) and blanched with sodium metabisulphite (B+SMBS) for production of dried chips for confectionery flours. Low moisture contents in the range of 2.48 to 5.00% were achieved for the dried chips lots in 20 h of drying at about 55 to 60°C using NSPRI’s Cabinet Crop Dryer without smoking. The dried chips had no visible mould growths in the duration of drying and mould loads were low (in the order of 10²cfu/g). However, different colours and textures were observed in dried chips and flours depending on pre-drying treat-ment. While UB-SMBS and UB+SMBS sweet potato chips’ flours were suitable and acceptable for production of chin-chin, the B-SMBS and B+SMBS were unsuitable and unacceptable at 100% composition of the flour.

Key words: Sweet potato, blanching, sodium metabisulphite, dried chips, flour.

Abbreviation

Abbreviations:  UB-SMBS, Unblanched without sodium metabisulphite; B-SMBS,blanched without sodium metabisulphite; UB+SMBS, unblanched with sodium metabisulphite; B+SMBS, blanched with sodium metabisulphite.