• The Journal of Natural Sciences
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.139-149
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• 2004

It was aimed to find out an efficient method of drying hot pepper, of which powder is used as one of the main ingredients in Korean dish preparation including Kimchi. Before sun or heat drying fruits harvested were horizontally cut into three pieces punched with an auger of 4 mm in diameter, or used as the whole fruit. Various drying methods were used including sun drying, drying under a plastic house, sun drying after heat drying for 5 hours at $70^{\circ}C$, $80^{\circ}C$, or $90^{\circ}C$, heat drying only at $50^{\circ}C$, $60^{\circ}C$, or $70^{\circ}C$, and changing temperature of $70^{\circ}C$, $5hours+60^{\circ}C$ until coplete dry, $80^{\circ}C+60^{\circ}C$, or $90^{\circ}C+60^{\circ}C$. The results are summarized as follows. With sun drying of the whole fruit, in required about 10days to reach the satisfactory level of dryness as indicated by its moisture content of below 10% in general. In case of heat drying combined with sun drying, it required 5 to 7 days. For cut fruits, it required 1 or 2 days less than for whole or pinholed fruits until drying. Under heat of alternation temperature drying, cut fruits also dried 15-20 hours earlier compared with whole of pinholed fruits. There were not significant differences for the recovery rate of the fruit with various drying methods. The occurrence of white fruits, which are caused by one of physiological disorders during drying, and rotten fruits was reduced with the cut fruit drying. The damages were very high with the PE house drying, but very little with the heat drying.