Process for producing a semi-moist fruit product and the products therefrom
AssigneeMaine Wild Blueberry Company
InventorAmr A. Ismail
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A semi-moist fruit product produced by a sugar-syrupping processing used in conjunction with wash-rinsing, surface air-drying and freeze-drying particularly adapted for use with blueberries, cherries and other similarly constituted fruits, whereby, liquid within the fruit is removed from the fruit through osmotic pressure exchange and is replaced by sugar molecules and an equilibrium is reached, thereafter through washing, rinsing and blotting of excess syrup, the process ensures independent individual dried fruit from sticking together, followed by freezing, vacuuming drying and packaging.
Claims24
A process for producing a sweetened, semi-moist fruit product having a moisture content in the range of 10% to 40% comprising:
- (a) coating fresh or frozen fruit with an effective amount of sugar to initiate nondestructive osmotic fluid-sugar exchange;
- (b) continuing the nondestructive osmotic fluid-sugar exchange within the fruit in which fruit juices migrate outward from the fruit and sugar migrates into the fruit by the osmotic exchange until the sugar concentration reaches an equilibrum across the fruit, without disturbing the natural skin of the fruit to produce a mixture of sugared fruit and sugared fruit syrup,
- (c) separating the syrup from the fruit;
- (d) rinsing the fruit to remove surface sugar and syrup from outside the fruit;
- and
- (e) drying the sweetened fruit in a vacuum atmosphere of up to 400 microns Hg and suddenly releasing the vacuum atmosphere within 1 to 2 minutes to collapse the fruit to a relatively wrinkled solid, chewy and palatable condition.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.