Evaluation of tray dryers for ripe plantain chips drying.

Drying aims to maintain durability by reducing the water content in the product. Ripe plantains have high water and sugar content, so they require special handling. This study dried ripe plantain chips using three rack-type dryers with different characteristics and heating sources. Two dryers used in this study were an electric tray dryer (P2) and a gas-burner type tray dryer (P3) developed by Research Center for Appropriate Technology, and the rest was a commercial electric tray dryer (P1). This experimental study used a factorial randomized design method with two factors: the dryer and the tray's position in the drying rack. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of a pilot plant-scale rack-type dryer with different characteristics and heating sources for drying ripe plantain chips. The research found that the three dryers reduced the moisture content of fresh plantain from 57.9–62.9% to 4.61%–10.34% after becoming dry chips. Analysis of temperature stability and uniformity in the drying chamber during the drying process showed that the gas-burner type tray dryer (P3) was more stable and had a uniform drying temperature compared to the commercial electric tray dryer (P1) and the electric tray dryer (P2). Meanwhile, based on the drying results, the moisture content of the banana chips from the commercial electric dryer (P1) was the highest and significantly different from the other two dryers. The results indicate that all evaluated dryers can dry ripe banana chips with good results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]