Frying of potato crisps - an investigation aiming at reduction oil content and acrylamide formation

Reducing oil content, minimizing any carcinogenic acrylamide in the high temperature frying process for potato crisps, and producing good products with considerable crispiness and acceptable color were the objectives of this research. Vacuum frying with pre-treatment of potato crisps was investigated as an effective process for oil content reduction. Pre-drying and subsequent dipping (PSSD) in a sugar solution (‘sugar dipping’) were considered as an advantageous procedure for the treatment of potato crisps before frying in order to reduce oil uptake during frying. Vacuum frying was observed as an excellent process to decrease significantly the acrylamide formation at low temperature frying of potato crisps. In this study, potato crisps were respectively blanched, pre-dried, and dipped in a solution of sugar (23.07 wt %) for two seconds, before vacuum frying at 120oC, 110oC under different vacuum pressures (170mbars, 150mbars, 100mbars and 50mbars in separate experiments). Conventional frying at 180oC was also used as the control to benchmark the reductions in the oil contents and acrylamide formation among various techniques. There was a significant reduction in oil content of the potato crisps observed when the new techniques were applied. The crisps that had been pre-treated and fried with conventional frying have given the result of 30 wt % reduction. The crisps that were fried under vacuum frying achieved greater oil reduction with varying percentages when applying different pretreatments. The lowest oil content was achieved when the potato crisps were fried at 110oC and 150 mbars giving 58 % reduction on the dry basis compared with control samples. There are various advantages of the technique with PSSD as we have discovered: it is simple and can be applied in potato crisp industries in continuous mode in both vacuum and conventional frying systems. The crisps that had been treated with pre-drying and subsequent sugar solution dipping and then fried were crunchier and possibly had better perceived taste to the consumer, due to the small sugar addition. Pre-drying and vacuum frying have all turned out to be excellent techniques to reduce acrylamide formation in potato crisps as we have found in this study. Vacuum frying at 120oC and 150 mbars reduced acrylamide formation by 80 to 85%. The 95% reduction was obtained when the crisps had been pre-dried. Acrylamide was undetectable when crisps were pre-dried and vacuum fried at 110oC, 150 mbars. The crisps with pre-drying subsequent sugar dipping and vacuum fried at low temperature had improved color compared with the control samples, which were produced by conventional frying at high temperatures.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Chemical and Materials Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

ResearchSpace@Auckland

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Tran, Mai Thu Thi.

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Professor Xiao Dong Chen
• Dr Necati Ozkan

Statement dc:rights

• Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2292/2318

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/2318