Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of brining and spicing with ginger or garlic on the drying rate of cat fish in a passive solar dryer. Samples of cat fish were solar dried under three different conditions: brine only, spiced with garlic and spiced with ginger. Their respective weight losses were used to determine the reduction in moisture contents. Graphs of drying rate versus time were plotted in each case and used to obtain the drying rate constant, k for the three drying conditions. This procedure is useful when a given level of moisture content must be linked to time of drying under similar conditions. The results obtained showed that cat fish dried using brine solution only is the best since its drying rate constant has the highest value of 0.375 units per day followed by ginger (0.273 units per day) and then garlic (0.254 units per day) is the least. The results also show that spicing with ginger and garlic reduce the drying rate of cat fish when dried in a passive solar dryer.

Key words: Comparative, drying, solar, rate, brine, ginger, garlic, fish.