Tropicultura (Jan 1991)
Etude du séchage de la pulpe de safou ; résultats préliminaires
Abstract
Survey on solar drying of safou pulp. Preliminary results. The consumption of safou, the fruit of Dacryodes edulis is very common in the entire Gulf of Guinea and is subject to a large trade in countries such as Cameroon, Congo, Gabon and Zaire. The fruit is very fragile with a post haverest loss of more than 50 % in the Congo. Solar dring is the only conservation method well managed by the local population but the resulting products have doubious hygenic quality. In order to appreciate the effect of drying on the product quality and in order to improve the traditional processes we have studied both the variation of residual water in the pulp and the acid index and the color of the oil. Drying with a stove (between 70 to 90°C) and the solar drying give identical products in spite of some small differences in the dehydration mechanism. The resulting products have satisfying qualities : less than 1 % water content, acide index less than 4, optical density around 0, 3 at 400 nm in 25 g/1 cyclohexane. The product can be directly eaten after rehydration or reused as raw material for the extraction of oil from pulp.
