Abstract:
Kesum was known in Malaysia as herb that being used as additional material on Malay cook.
Developing of dried kesum powder can make it easily to store in long period as it is hard to
find fresh kesum especially in town. The objective of this study was to determine the best
drying method to make kesum powder as it evaluate effect of different drying method on
physicochemical and consumer acceptance. Kesum leaves, Pofygonum minus, which was
obtained from Pasar Batu Enam, Kuala Terengganu was used in this study. Hot air drying
oven, vacuum drying oven and freeze drying was applied in this study. Kesum powder made
by freeze drying had the lower moisture content which was 8.45±0.31 %, while vacuum drying
method gave the highest moisture content which was 9.69±0.38%. Freeze drying resulted in
dried kesum with the lowest moisture is more favorable for longer time storage compared to
other treatment. It was found that dried kesum made by freeze drying method resulted lowest
water activity value which was 0.41±0.08aw and followed by hot air drying, 0.53±0.0l aw while
vacuum drying gave highest aw which was 0.53±0.27aw .There was no significant difference
(p<0.05) between hot air and vacuum method but then, both shown significant different
(p<0.05) compared to freeze drying method. For the hot air oven time vs temperature analysis,
it was found that drying rates of samples were decreased shape when the drying time was
increased. For all temperature involved, it can be conclude that higher drying rates occuned in
early stage of drying period and its going to constant drying rates for longer drying period as it
was reached its equilibrium moisture content. Freeze drying resulted lightest color and it
showed significant difference (p<0.05) of "L" value to other drying method while vacuum
oven gave darkest color compared to other samples (p<0.05). Freeze had showed highest mean
score for all attributes in sensory evaluations compared to hot air and vacuum oven drying
treatment. Compared to the fresh kesum as control samples, freeze drying never showed any
significant difference while vacuum oven showed significant different (p<0.05) for all attributes.
