Philippine E-Journals

Quality of Dried Sea Cucumber (Holothuria scabra) using Hot Air- Solar Drying Technique

Mark Jude F. Trondillo | Kevin F. Yaptenco

 

Abstract:

Dried sea cucumber is among the fishery exports of the Philippines, it involves gutting, brushing, boiling and drying for several days. In this study, four methods of drying (smoke-sun, hot air-solar, oven and freeze) were employed. The drying characteristics, quality in terms of the proximate composition and color values were examined using traditional and modified methods for sandfish (Holothuria scabra). The results showed that primary stage drying using smoking slowed down the drying rate compared to hot-air drying. The freeze-drying had the fastest drying rate among drying methods and significantly different by Tukey HSD Test at 0.05%. The proximate composition of dried sea cucumber revealed that samples are high in crude protein and low-fat content. While the color values of all samples under smoked and hot-air processed are significantly different (p < 0.05) between primary and final stage drying. The color change both on the dorsal and ventral side portion of dried samples between primary and final drying stage indicated that samples have darkened. Moreover, the grading evaluation of different drying methods for dried sea cucumber were classified as “class A” for freeze and hot air-solar dried. The hot-air dried samples had the highest price valuation among stakeholders.The traditional smoke-sun drying the most economical method of drying sea cucumber but had lower evaluation at class “B”.