Chili pepper has unique taste, rich nutrition and high vitamin content, and it has the title of "King of Vitamin C". Red pigment is widely used in food, beverage, medicine, cosmetics and other fields. The chili pepper harvest season is from October to March of each year. Chili is easy to rot, so it must be dried. There are two traditional drying methods, one is to manually tie them one by one and then hang them on a charcoal fire for a long time, and the other is to insulate them. The above two conventional drying methods result in poor quality chili pepper, many yellow and white flowers and husks, large pollution, high labor intensity, and small processing capacity. Our company adopts high-temperature dehumidification drying technology, so that the dried pepper can get good color, high quality and low operation cost.
- Drying stack thickness
The stacking thickness of the chili should be the same, generally 3 to 10 cm. If the stack is too thin, with good air permeability and low wind resistance, heat exchange is favored, although the contact time between hot air and peppers is relatively short and the heat utilization rate is low. If the stacking is too thick, the resistance will increase and the hot air cannot penetrate the material layer and the drying effect is not optimal.
- temperature selection
The temperature of the hot drying air is related to the quality and efficiency of the product. Chili peppers contain more than ten major nutrients, some of which will be lost and destroyed at high temperatures. In order not to reduce the nutrient content, it is not appropriate to choose a high temperature of hot air. Chili peppers have a high water content, generally 75 - 85%. Hot air drying at 40 - 60°C, the relative humidity is below 70% at first, drops below 52% after 5 hours, and is below 40% after 12 hours. It can be seen that the precipitation rate of chili is controlled by internal water transfer most of the time. Therefore, the productivity of the pepper drying operation depends on the temperature of the pepper itself, rather than the moisture transport capacity of the hot air. From the perspective of ensuring that the nutritional components of the dried product are not affected and improving productivity, the drying temperature of chili is preferably 60 - 65 °C.
- Staged drying method
Staged drying is an ideal method for drying chili pepper at present, that is, chili pepper with 75% to 85% water content is first dried in a pile with 50% water content to sweat, and then dried a second time after sweating.
Stepping on and sweating: This is a very important step in the pepper drying process. The adoption or not of this step has a great influence on the quality of the chili, the drying time and the amount of drying. The chili has an obvious phenomenon of softening and swelling during drying. The main function of stepping on the sweat pile is to make the chili oil penetrate into the surface, and the dried product has a uniform, reddish and smooth color, and to promote the balance of water content. The drying time needs more than 40 hours if you don't sweat by stepping on the pile, and the drying time can be shortened to 25 hours after stepping on the pile to sweat.
Tips
Chili contains more than ten nutrients. Some of these ingredients are easily lost and destroyed at high temperatures, so choosing a higher hot air temperature is not recommended to avoid reducing nutrients.
If the water content of the chili is around 80%, a large amount of water will be released and discharged during drying, which will directly affect the character of the chili after drying. Therefore, we must pay attention to strengthen the management of ventilation and moisture discharge, so as to maintain a stable and adequate water loss rate for chili pepper. The control of ventilation and moisture discharge is based on the standard of wet and dry temperature difference, generally the wet bulb temperature is kept between 38 and 39 ℃, and the temperature difference is kept above 6 ℃ ( not including 6℃).
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