• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.324-331
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• 2009

Peeled whole onions (PWO) were cleaned at various hypochlorous acid (HA) concentration and steeping time and packed in LDPE bag keeping at $10^{\circ}C$ for 12 days and $35^{\circ}C$ for 3 days, in order eventually to examine microbiology, surface color and sensory quality. At the early stage of storage, it was found that total bacterial counts at H-II keeping at $10^{\circ}C$ after 1 minute steeping were $2.60\;{\pm}\;0.18\;log\;CFU/g$, and those after 3 minutes steeping were $2.10\;{\pm}\;0.18\;log\;CFU/g$ which showed less than the control. The total bacterial counts at H-III were detected after 4 days. The total bacterial counts of PWO treated HA increased as steeping time became longer, HA concentration increased, and storage temperature went down. E. coli was not detected at all treatments. It was also found that during the treatment the L-value showed decreasing trend, but the parameter a- and b- value showed increasing trend. But these trends were mitigated as HA concentration increased. The result of sensory quality evaluation for the appearance showed that the sample stored with $10^{\circ}C$ gained higher evaluation than that with $10^{\circ}C$, while the control and H-III gained highest points significantly (p < 0.05) for the sample keeping at $10^{\circ}C$ after 12 days storage. The sensory odor of onion showed similar to that for the appearance, and the 8-day treatments of H-II and H-III showed no significantly difference (p < 0.05). On the basis of the results above, it is likely to be more effective to prolong the period of circulation of PWO if you use HA over 50 ppm for washing PWO and storage at $10^{\circ}C$. This study will contribute to improve safety and quality in circulation of PWO.