Abstract
Oriental melon has been increased in production amount, but its processed food was not made in spite of the fact that shelf-life of the fresh fruit is short. This study was carried out to develop a dried product with no use sulfur treatment. Fresh melons were peeled, cut into 6 pieces, and soaked to the following pretreatments soaking in sugar syrup(SS), sodium chloride(SC), ascorbic acid(AA) and sodium polyphosphate(SP). After preatreatments the melon pieces were dried by hot air drying at 5$0^{\circ}C$ for 9 and 12 hours, and the dried melons were air blown at $25^{\circ}C$ for 1 day. The dried samples were evaluated for moisture content, texture, rotor, and sensory quality. The moisture content of dried melons soaked in SS and SC were lower than those that were soaked in AA and SP after hot air drying. The melons dried for 12 hours were high in hardness, gumminess, chewness and adhesiveness and excellent in sensory evaluation compared to 9 hours. The "L" value of SS was higher and the "a" value was lower in Hunter color. And SS treatment inhibited browning of the dried melon and improved sensory characteristics in color, flavor, texture and taste. Sucrose concentration had no significant effect on color, hardness and sensory score in banal product. The combination of SS with SP represented a highly effective antibrowning treatment for the dried melon and the product was kept in good color for 3 months at room temperature.at room temperature.