US 5,035,909 AGranted

Process for dehydrating tomatoes

AssigneeImit, A.C.

InventorsJuan M. Lomelin, Maria C. Vaqueiro

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Abstract

Tomatoes are dehydrated by selecting red, ripe tomatoes and washing the selected tomatoes with a biocide and then rinsing with fresh water. The rinsed fruit is cut into approximately cubical chunks and blanched by heating the chunks to a temperature at or below the boiling point of water for a period of less than 10 minutes to inactivate the enzymes contained in the tomato. The blanched tomatoes are cooled to room temperature and then pulped. After removing skin and seeds to form a tomato juice from the pulp chunks, the juice is evaporated under vacuum to form a paste-like concentrate having a solid content from abot 20% to about 35%. Air trapped in the concentrate is removed. The concentrate is then formed into pieces and dried until the moisture content of the pieces is between about 3% and about 4%.

Claims13

Dependent claims

A process for dehydrating tomatoes, comprising the steps of:

(a) selecting red, ripe tomato fruit having a firm texture;
(b) washing the selected tomato fruit with a biocide and rinsing with fresh water;
(c) cutting the rinsed fruit into approximately cubical chunks;
(d) blanching the tomato chunks by heating the chunks to a temperature at or below the boiling point of water for a period of time less than about 10 minutes to inactivate the enzymes contained in the tomato chunks;
(e) cooling the blanched tomato chunks to approximately room temperature;
(f) pulping the cooled tomato chunks and removing skin and seeds from the pulped chunks to form a tomato juice;
(g) evaporating the tomato juice under vacuum to form a tomato paste-like concentrate having a solids content of from about 20% to 32%;
(h) removing the air trapped within the concentrate;
(i) forming the concentrate into pieces having a maximum thickness or diameter of from about 1 mm to about 3 mm;
and drying the concentrate pieces until the moisture content of said pieces is between about 3% to about 4%.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.