Thermal and pulsed electric field (PEF) assisted hydration of common beans

Lavaraj Devkota, Lizhong He, Claudio Bittencourt, Jocelyn Midgley, Victoria S. Haritos

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Hydration, a crucial preliminary stage of dried bean processing is mostly performed as a slow, batch-wise process. Here we investigated the effect of thermal and pulsed electric field (PEF)-assisted hydration of two common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) on hydration behaviour, mass loss and leaching of bioactive components. Beans were hydrated in media either using a thermal process (30–80 °C, 10 °C intervals) until equilibrium moisture content (EMC) was reached or were hydrated to 40 g/100 g dry basis moisture at 45 °C, then PEF-treated at an electric field intensity of 4 kV/cm, f = 2 Hz, pulse width 15 μs, pulse numbers from 200 to 1000 (specific energy from 91 kJ/kg to 455 kJ/kg) and further hydrated until EMC. PEF-assisted hydration reached higher equilibrium moisture values and reduced the hydration time by 3-fold for small red beans (1000 pulses, 455 kJ/kg specific energy) compared to 45 °C soak, however, it also leached higher amounts of bioactive polyphenols into the media. Comparable losses of prebiotic oligosaccharides from beans into the media were found in the two hydration approaches. PEF-assisted hydration is a promising alternative to soaking to reduce process time for slow hydrating beans and leaching of bioactive components could be minimised through process optimization.

Original languageEnglish
Article number113163
Number of pages9
JournalLWT
Volume158
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Mar 2022

Keywords

  • Anthocyanins
  • Mass loss
  • Oligosaccharides
  • Phaseolus vulgaris
  • Total phenolic content

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