Improvement of Productivity in Raw Dried Oyster Crackers by Hot air oven

Abstract

The objective of this research was to study and develop oyster crackers. The production cost    and increasing of productivity were evaluated. The dimension of hot air oven was 80 x 85 x 190 cms, width x length x height with 12 drying trays. The combined energy of electric power and LPG gas were used to develop a hot air dryer. Experiments were conducted at inlet air temperatures of 50, 60 and 70 °C for 6 hours. The experiments were carried out using hot air drying method and sun drying method. The results showed that the  optimal conditions was obtained by the hot air drying method at 70 °C for 3 hours with 11.37 % moisture content, 0.68 of a_w and highest expansion. The comparison of effectiveness cracker production, showed that the effectiveness of conventional drying method at 70 °C for 3 hours was higher than sun drying method at 16.67 % with 45 kilograms/day of production capacity, and 37.50 kilograms/day of production capacity for sun drying method. For the comparison of cost, it was found that the cost of cracker production with hot air drying method was 1,467.66 baht while the cost of sun drying method was 1,543.81 baht and the cost of hot air dryer fabrication was 159,000 baht, which could pay back within 6 months and 7 days.