Abstract:
A comparison of the moisture content measurement results in dried apples with moisture
from 2.5% to 28% (wet base) and dried carrots with moisture from 4% to 15% (wet base) obtained by
infrared drying rapid method and classical vacuum oven method is presented. It was shown that IRD
results depend both on the drying temperature and on the moisture level in the tested samples. We
determined optimal drying conditions/ temperature for analyzer application being of 82 °C for dried
carrots, and 82 °C or 98 °C for the dried apples with a brittle (and hard) or elastic texture,
respectively. The systematic measurement errors that appear for dried samples with different moisture
content at the same IRD temperature have been corrected due to reference values data using
appropriate graphs and empirical equations.