Osmotic dehydration and mass transfers’ determination
Sucrose dissolved in distilled water was used as the osmotic agent. The solute content was fixed at 50 and 70% (w/w). The weight ratio of the sample to the solution was 1:20(w/w) in order to not dilute the osmotic solution by water removal from the sample during the experiments .The cuboid pieces were placed in 650 mL beakers containing the osmotic solution and maintained in a temperature-controlled bath (according to the conditions presented in Table 1) for 2 h. Homogenization of the osmotic solution was obtained by mild and constant mechanical agitation at 100 rpm.