Production of enzymatic hydrolysed spray-dried honeydew melon (Cucumis melo L.) powder

Honeydew melon has grown in popularity because of its nice odour and sweet flavours. This advocated using enzyme to hydrolyse the honeydew melon and then spray drying it into powder. Two parameters were manipulated: maltodextrin concentrations (10–50% w/w) and inlet temperatures (140–180 °C). The spray-dried honeydew melon powders were examined for process yield, water activity, moisture content, hygroscopicity, bulk density, solubility and colour. The reconstituted powders were assessed by determining TSS, pH, viscosity and colour. The results indicated that the greater maltodextrin concentration employed resulted in a significantly (p ≤ 0.05) lower moisture content and hygroscopicity, as well as a significantly (p ≤ 0.05) higher powder solubility. The 20% maltodextrin concentration was optimum due to the optimal process yield (64.09 ± 5.26%) was obtained. Water activity and moisture content had decreased due to the rise in inlet temperature. The inlet temperature, 170 °C was selected as optimum inlet temperature due to higher process yield (69.83 ± 10.63%) and highest solubility (107.67 ± 6.11 s/g) of spray-dried honeydew melon powder. Overall, there were no significant difference (p > 0.05) in the properties of optimised reconstituted honeydew melon powder with the initial juice, except L* and b* values. In short, the production of enzyme-hydrolysed honeydew melon powder was feasible, which could widen its applicability in food industry.