Evaluation of chitosan as clarification aid in production of sour cherry juice and its effect on quality during storage

In this thesis, the use of chitosan as an alternative to the clarification aid used in the clarification stage, which is one of the most important steps of sour cherry juice production, and the effects of chitosan on the quality changes of sour cherry juice during 6 months of storage were investigated. In the study, traditional clarification aids were also used to make comparisons with 2 different chitosan. In the first stage of the study, the optimum conditions for chitosan to be used as a clarification aid in the production of sour cherry juice were determined by concentration, time, and temperature experiments. In the second stage, sour cherry juice was produced under the determined optimum conditions. At the last stage, changes in turbidity, pH, titration acidity, soluble solid content (SSC), color, total anthocyanin, total phenolic substance, and antioxidant capacity (TEAC and FRAP) values of sour cherry juices produced with chitosan and traditional clarification aids during 6 months of storage at 4℃ and 25℃ were determined and compared. In the study, optimum conditions for both chitosan were determined as 1.75 g/L chitosan, 50°C temperature and 90 minutes incubation time. The changes in the sour cherry juice produced under these conditions during the 6-month storage at 4℃ and 25℃ were investigated and compared with the sour cherry juice produced with the traditional clarification aid. It was determined that they showed similar changes in terms of pH, titration acidity, SSC, color, total phenolic substance, and antioxidant capacity at 4℃ storage temperature; pH, titration acidity, TSS, color and antioxidant capacity at 25°C storage temperature. It was determined that they have superior properties in terms of changes in total anthocyanin at both storage temperatures and total phenolic substance at 25℃ storage temperature. The results show that chitosan can be used as an alternative to conventional clarification aids.