Developing a household vacuum cooking equipment, testing the performance on strawberry jam production

In this research, a kitchen appliance cooking equipment which can operate either under vacuum or at atmospheric pressure is aimed to be developed and to be tested the performance on strawberry jam production. According to developed kitchen appliance equipment, the prototype for household cooking type (oven type) was developed by the company which financially support the project, Arçelik A.Ş. In order to determine the optimum cooking conditions of the strawberry jam which was produced using the developed prototype equipment, optimization study was carried out according to Central Composite design. The effect of vacuum cooking conditions in terms of cooking temperature and time on strawberry jam production were investigated based on Central Composite Rotatable Desing (CCRD). The effect of these independent variables on Brix, Hue, HMF content and consistency in spoon which is one of sensory evaluation criteria of strawberry jam were determined in the optimization study. The optimum vacuum cooking conditions were selected as 74.4 °C cooking temperature and 19.8 time by using Design Expert software. CIE color values (L*,a*,b*), Chroma(C*), pH, titratable acidity, % (w/v), reducing sugar,%, sucrose, %, total sugar content,% and sensory properties were also determined. But these properties were not used as a response in optimization study. In the optimum process conditions which determined according to the model, at least five experiments were carried out and optimum point was confirmed experimentally. In addition, to compare the quality of the strawberry jam produced by the vacuum cooking method with conventional method, strawberry jam production were also carried out at atmospheric pressure and physical and chemical properties of obtained strawberry jams were compared.