Abstract
As one of the new food processing technology, frying under reduced pressure has lately attracted attention. It is considered to be a kind of drying process of foods with oil under reduced pressure. Its merits are efficiency of dehydration, inhibition of brownish discoloration or oxidation in products and oil, improvement of product quality, etc. However, there were only few research examples of frying food materials under reduced pressure. We considered it a possible practical method and analyzed the phenomenon in the dehydration of potato. Under constant vacuum degree (0.667kPa), we measured temperature changes in sample and oil, as well as the initial and final weight of sample in a range from 60 to 100°C. Then we simulated the results with Runge-Kutta-Gill method, taking into consideration the process of heat and mass transfer, with the rate of chemical reaction of gelatinization and the results were agreed well with the experimental data.
