Quality characteristics of dried persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb) of different fruit sizes

Fruits of persimmon are considered as one of the health promoting foods which has been established as one of the major fruits in Korea. Persimmon is one of the fruits processed mainly by drying. Quality characteristics of dried persimmon prepared with different fruit sizes of cultivar Sanggandungsi were investigated. Smaller sized fruits showed significantly high weight loss as compared to bigger ones due to drying. On the other hand, bigger sized fruits possessed significantly high value for hardness after 35 days of drying. Size of fruit was not found to be vital for soluble solid contents of dried fruits. One of the important bioactive molecules of persimmon fruits (tannin content) is significantly high in bigger sized fruits as compared to smaller ones. Significant differences in various parameters among different sized fruits indicate that, physicochemical characteristics of dried persimmon fruit could be affected by the fruit size. Key words: Drying, fruit size variation, physicochemical properties.