Processing of raw coconut milk for its value addition using spray and freeze drying techniques

In this study, a comparison among spray-dried powder at optimized conditions was done, freeze-dried powder produced in the laboratory using same concentration of MD and commercial one was finally made. Multilevel factorial design was used to generate experiments for spray drying using inlet temperatures (180–200 °C) and feed rate (0.7–0.9 L/hr) as factors. Powder moisture, drying ratio, productivity, drying rate, and product recovery yield were used as responses for optimizing spray drying. The optimum conditions for spray drying of coconut milk with respect to the responses studied were 180 °C for inlet temperature and 0.9 L/hr for feed rate. A comparison was made in terms of physical, chemical, thermal, and mechanical properties. Freeze dried powder exhibits more stable form of powder in handling and storage due to its low moisture content (1.19%) and high glass transition temperature (22.94 ± 0.2 °C). The porous structure and large particle size of freeze dried powder make it free flowing as compared to spray dried powder. Practical applications Good quality coconut milk can provide with all the benefits of raw virgin coconut oil but it is difficult to store due to less shelf life. By converting coconut milk into powder, its shelf life can be increased without using preservatives. Coconut milk powder can be used as natural source of dietary supplement as it has many proven health benefits including prevent anemia, regulates heart functioning, increases body fitness, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral. It is difficult to convert raw coconut milk into powder form due to its creamy and sticky structure. In this research work, raw coconut milk was dried with two different drying methods to produce good quality coconut milk powder in terms of flowability. The findings of this research work provide basic fundamentals for food industry to produce better quality coconut milk powder which is easy to handle, store and further use in combination with different dishes.