Development and optimization of instant drink formulation from pineapple (Ananas cosmosus) juice

Pineapple (Ananas cosmosus) has been proven to have many beneficial effects for health due to its bromelain content. The formulation of an instant drink form fresh pineapple juice to produce an instant drink product with high bromelain content was developed. A number of pineapple powder specimens were produced using a spray dryer with different formulations. Fresh pineapple juices were added with 15% of maltodextrin (MD) combined with 0%, 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.4%, and 0.5% of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) before exposing to the drying temperature at 150°C. The qualities of pineapple powders were investigated in the aspects of enzyme activity, moisture content, solubility, and vitamin C content. The results indicated that the preferred formulation for spray dried pineapple was the addition of MD at 15% and CMC at 0% with specific activity of 2.212 ± 0.459 U/mg, moisture content of 4.27 ± 0.177 %, solubility of 0.83 ± 0.236 g/ml, and vitamin C content of 0.466 ± 0.029 mg/g pineapple.