Shrinkage of osmotically dehydrated sardine sheets at changing moisture contents Original Research Article

The objective of this work was to determine the relationship between moisture content and shrinkage factor of osmotically dehydrated sardine sheets. Dehydration was performed according to a 5 × 5 × 7 factorial design where the temperature, concentration and dehydration time were 30, 32, 34, 36 and 38 °C, 15%, 18%, 21%, 24%, and 27% NaCl, and 20, 40, 60, 120, 180 and 240 min, respectively. The shrinkage factor in each sardine sheet was calculated according to the Viberg et al. [J. Food Eng. 35 (1998) 135] equation. Linear simple regression was used to fit the database to the model of the shrinkage factor as a function of moisture content. The models as fitted explained the 82.54–95.71% of the variability in the shrinkage factor as a function of moisture content and, the 90–99% of the variability in the shrinkage factor as a function of dimensionless moisture content at the 95% confidence level.