Some Physical Properties Of Dried Tympanotosus Fuscatus And Pachymelania Aurita Periwinkle Meat
Periwinkle serves as food mostly among people in coastal areas in Nigeria, making it an essential ingredient in preparing various delicacies. The processing of periwinkle has been through traditional methods by using a knife and needle to extract the meat from its shell. Traditional periwinkle processing is tedious, hazardous, time-consuming, unwholesome, and uneconomical. This study determines the effect of drying methods (cabinet and oven drying) on the physical properties of periwinkle types. The intention is to help solve the challenges of machine designing, processing, handling, and storing periwinkle. The periwinkle meat samples were dried using the cabinet and oven drying methods. The drying of the two varieties of periwinkle meat samples (Tympanotosus fuscatus and Pachymelania aurita) was at about 105ºC for 3 hours in an electric oven dryer. The ambient temperature during oven drying was 31ºC, and the ambient relative humidity of 57%. While using the cabinet dryer, the temperature was at about 60ºC for 10 hours, with ambient temperature and relative humidity at 33.3ºC and 61%, respectively. Some dried periwinkles were selected from the samples to determine the geometrical and gravimetric properties of the two periwinkle varieties. The ANOVA results showed a significant difference (p<0.05) in the physical properties of the varieties between the fresh sample, oven-dried, and cabinet-dried samples. Hence, oven and cabinet drying methods are recommended for appropriate drying of the periwinkle meat before storage.The determined physical properties from the study can be used as input parameters for designing efficient processing equipment for periwinkle meat.