Optimisation of microwave drying for encapsulation of edible bird’s nest hydrolysate.

Abstract

There has been limited study on the encapsulation of edible bird’s nest (EBN) employing microwave drying and the evaluation of the final product quality. This study aimed to optimise the encapsulation of EBN hydrolysate (EBNH) using microwave drying by optimising microwave power, encapsulation time and core-to-wall (C/W) ratio. Physiochemical properties of encapsulated EBNH were measured. Response surface methodology (RSM) using Box Behnken design was used to optimise the conditions of microwave power, encapsulation time and C/W ratio by using Design Expert 13 software. Based on the colour analysis, the value of chroma obtain was 5.062 ± 0.93 while the degree of hue obtained from the optimum condition was 40.696 ± 3.85º. The moisture content obtained from the optimum condition was 10.59 ± 0.49 %. The moisture content attained was in the range of the dry basis targeted in this study which is in between 5 – 12 % dry basis. Dissolution time obtained from the optimum condition was 126 ± 24.67 s. Solubility percentage shows that EBNH powder encapsulated with maltodextrin treatment has a high degree of solubility, reaching up to 92.5 %. This shows that the optimum condition was significant in terms of the powder solubility that was attained. High DPPH activity (48.83 ± 0.95 %) was obtained that showed that EBNH possessed strong antioxidant effects. In conclusion, C/W ratio were found to significantly affect degree of hue, chroma value and solubility of the powder. The encapsulation time during microwave was found to affect the dissolution time, DPPH assay and moisture content.