Modelling the acidification curve of tropical fruits: cashew apple, coconut, kiwi, mango, papaya, red guava, watermelon and yellow melon

The tropical/exotic fruits are important sources of nutrients, and its pleasant flavour and sensory profile results in a growing demand worldwide. Therefore there is a need for better understanding its processing and properties. The acidification is a unit operation widely used in vegetable processing, in special associated to pasteurization in order to guarantee the food preservation. Moreover, the acidification is widely used in pectin gels development, which is important for some fruit products processing and stability. However, although being extensively applied in fruit products processing, the acidification is slightly studied, in special its mathematical description. The present work evaluated two mathematical functions in order to modelling eight fruit pulps acidification curve. Both functions described well the experimental data and can be used for modelling the fruit pulp acidification curve. The obtained results can be directly used for processing design, being potentially useful for future studies on food properties and process design.