MALAYSIAN INSTITUTE OF CHEMICAL AND

BIOENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY.

FOOD PROCESSING
TECHNOLOGY (CFD 20103)
UNIKL MICET
LAB MANUAL

PRACTICAL 3: BLANCHING OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

Introduction

Blanching is a heat treatment commonly applied to tissue systems prior to freezing,

drying or canning. The objectives of blanching depend on the process, which follows
it. Blanching prior to freezing or dehydration is done primarily to inactivate enzymes.
Unblanched frozen or dried foods exhibit relatively rapid changes in such properties
as colour, flavour and nutritive value as a result of enzyme activity. Blanching prior to
conventional canning fulfils several important objectives: to remove tissue gases, to
increase the temperature of the tissue, to cleanse the tissue, to wilt the tissue to
facilitate packing and to activate or inactivate enzymes. Since the product generally
receives a thermal process severe enough to inactivate enzymes, enzyme inactivation
is not necessarily a primary objective of blanching. Removal of tissue gases and
preheating the product prior to filling, however, are important objectives of
precanning operations since they have a great influence on the final level of oxygen in
the container and therefore directly influence storage life. Accomplishment implies
low gas concentration in the product.

Blanching is an essential step before processing of any vegetable as it destroys the

enzymes and microorganisms and helps in prevention of quality deterioration
particularly during drying, freezing, frying or storage. Besides, it also expels the air
entrapped intercellularly inside the tissues (Lee, 1958). Blanching has also proved to
aid reconstitution and textural improvement in product (Morris, 1947). Blanching
involves a short and quick heat treatment preferably in a wet medium either by steam
or hot water which provides uniform heating and high heat transfer rate (Lee, 1958).
The time required for blanching depends upon the time required for inactivation of
enzymes and thus on the rate of heat transfer. Hot water blanching is by far the most
popular and commercially adopted process as it is the simplest and most economical
technique. However, prolonged hot water blanching results in considerable loss of
nutrients such as carbohydrates, proteins, water soluble minerals, vitamins and sugars
(Lee, 1958). Steam blanching results in minimum solid loss, although it proved to be
comparatively uneconomical with no remarkable difference in blanching time.
Moreover, steam blanching carried out in thick layers on moving belt often resulted in
non-uniform blanching effect (Gibert, Baxerres, & Kim, 1980).

Two of the more heat-resistant and widely distributed enzymes in plant tissues are
peroxidase and catalase. Activity of these enzymes, therefore, can be used to evaluate
the effectiveness of a blanching treatment. If both are inactivated then it can be
assumed that other significant enzymes also are inactivated. The heating time
necessary to destroy catalase or peroxidase depends on the type of fruit or vegetable,
the method of heating, the size of the fruit or vegetable, and the temperature of the
heating medium.

Materials and Method

Table 1: Experimental setup of blanching

Blanching condition Temperature Exposure time
(s)
Hot water blanching 100◦C 0 s, 60 s, 120 s
and 180s

Equipment: Hot water blancher and selected fruits and vegetables.

Instructions

(A) Blanching process

Read carefully to the end, and follow the procedures step by step:-
1. Cut the vegetables and fruits in small pieces and separate them into five
batches.
2. Sample the blanched vegetables and fruits at exactly 0s, 60s, 120s and 180s of
exposure time.
3. For hot water blanching, soak the vegetables and fruits into the hot water.
4. After heating, immediately cool the blanched sample by immersing them in
ice water.
5. Sample of blanched vegetables and fruits will undergo a post analysis of
physical characteristic and catalase/peroxidise activity.

(B) Evaluation of blanched sample

i. Physical characteristic

Compare the physical characteristic of blanched sample in terms of color, texture

and odor by subjective means according to the Table 2.

Table 2: Evaluation on the physical characteristic of blanched sample.

Blanching Samples Exposure Physical characteristic

conditions time (s) Colour Texture Odour

Hot water Fruits 0

blanching 60
120
180
Vegetables 0
60
120
180
ii. Conducting the catalase test.

a) Prepare a fresh 1% solution of hydrogen peroxide by diluting 10ml of

30% hydrogen peroxide with 290ml of distilled water.

b) Add 10ml as distilled water to each test tube. Chop the samples into small, uniform
pieces. Place a few grams of the sample into the test tube.

c) Add 1ml of 1% hydrogen peroxide to the test tube. Stopper and shake the
tube. Remove the stopper.

d) After 1 to 2 minutes, observe the tubes for gas evolution. Rate each sample on the
basis of the following scale:-

0 = no evolution of gas
1 = slight evolution of gas
2 = moderate evolution of gas
3 = extensive evolution of gas

Samples possessing the greatest catalase activity will evolve the most gas.
Catalase tests are only used on samples, which show positive peroxidase activity.
Table 3: Catalase activity of blanched sample.

Blanching conditions Samples Exposure Catalase test

time (s)

Hot water blanching Fruits 0

60
120
180
Vegetables 0
60
120
180

References:
1. S. Mukherjee, P.K. Chattopadhyay 2007. Whirling bed blanching of potato
cubes and its effects on product quality. Journal of Food Engineering 78
(2007) 52–60.
2. Lee, F.A. 1958. The blanching process. Adv. Fo