Tomato drying and drying curves
The moisture present in the fresh tomatoes was 94.8 %±0.30.
When the fresh tomato samples were dried by solar and sun
drying methods, themoisture in the samples was reduced to an
average of 5.08 %±0.42 (Fig. 1b).
One group of tomato slices were placed at an open place
completely exposed to sun throughout the day and the other
group was placed inside the solar drier. During drying, the
samples were weighed after an interval of 2 hrs to calculate
the rate of moisture loss shown in Fig. 1b. Both sun and solardried samples loss moisture rapidly during the initial drying
period and later on the moisture removal from the samples
was found at slower rate.