Drying
The hot-air drying experiments were performed in a
pilot plant tray dryer (Armfield Limited, D 27412,
England) Drying was performed at 60 1C with an air
velocity of 1.770.1 m/s untila moisture content of
0.12 kg moisture/kg dry solid was reached. Four
hundred grams of fresh carrots were used in each run.
Microwave drying experiments were performed in a
domestic microwave oven (Vestel, Turkey). Power levels
were determined by IMPI 2-L test (Buffler, 1993). High
power level was calculated as 560W, medium power as
397W and low power as 286 W. Microwave drying was
performed after carrots were dried to a moisture content
of 0.47 kg moisture/kg dry solid (dry basis) by hot-air
drying. The reason for using such a combination was to
prevent cooking of carrots in microwave oven. Twenty
grams of samples were placed in the oven and in every
15 s, weight loss was recorded by a digital balance.