Discussion Exp 2 Pickling

Discussion In the making of fruits and vegetable pickles there were a few objectives of this experiment which were to explain the purpose of each step involved in the making fruits and vegetable  pickles. Other than that it is to explain the function of each ingredient and to reproduce the t he  pickle with the same technique. Pickling is the method to preserve food. Food preservation can be defined as the science which deals with the methods of prevention of decay or spoilage of food. Thus, allowing it to  be store in a fit condition for future use. (Reddy, Feb 2016) 2016) There were a few steps involving in the making of pickles. Firstly, the fruits and vegetable had been washed to ensure that contaminating material is removed from the fruits and vegetables. After that the fruits and vegetable were peeled by using knife peeling to remove unwanted material such as the skin of the fruits. The next step is size reduction where the fruits were cut into appropriate size it is to improve eating suitability of food and for future  processing. The fruits had been soaked in calcium carbonate solution (CaCO 3) for 15 minutes to improve pickles firmness (Nummers, august 2006). After 15 minutes, the fruits had been rinses by using tap water. The excess calcium carbonate solution must be removing to  produce safe pickles (Nummers, august 2006). The fruits and vegetable cuts were transferred into plastic container and the pickle solutions were added into it. In the pickle solution contains 57g of salts, 900g of vinegars, 480g of water and 343g of sugar. The function of the salts in the pickle is to extracting the excess water from fruits and vegetable as well as unlocking flavourful juices, concentrating the flavours and give firm texture. Therefore, the vinegar functions as preservative and flavouring agent in the pickles and also prevents spoilage during storage. Sugar is added to increase the rate of fermentation or to make the  product sweeter (nations). After that, the colour, pH, moisture content and total soluble solid of the pickle solution were recorded before treatment and after four days. As the result from table 1 shows that the initial reading for the pH is lower than the final reading. In theoretical, the pH for initial reading should be higher than the final reading which means the initial process are in alkaline solution and after four days the solution are in acidic solution. This happened due to some errors. For the total soluble solid (TSS) and the moisture content, the result shows that the initial reading is higher than the final reading. This is because of the osmosis process that occurs between the pickle solution and the fruits. Osmosis proses are the movement of water molecules through a selectively permeable membrane. Water will move from an area of high solute concentration to an area of low solute concentration. This process does not require any energy. It is occur naturally and goes until equilibrium is achieved. Diffusion is the movement of solute, like salts or dissolved sugars from an area of high solute concentration to an area of low solute concentration. In  pickling water will be extracted from the fruits and vegetable by osmosis. Meanwhile diffusion will cause the fruits and vegetable to enrich itself with solutes in the brining solution. (coucquyt, 20 February 2014). From the appendix figure 1 and figure 2 shows the different colour of solution before treatment and after four days. In figure 1 the colour of the solution is cloudy compared to the colour of solution in figure 2, where in figure 2 the colour

of the solution is clear. This is because of the presence of vinegar as an acid solution that changed the dark colour of liquid to clear liquid. Pickles do not require any colorant because their natural colour is acceptable. However, to create a standardized product and overcome the effect of processes such as bleaching, manufacturers often add colour. To inhibit colour changes in pickles, sulphur dioxide is added. There was little possible error in the making of pickle. First is shrivelling. Shrivelling happens in very sweet or sour pickles. It causes from using too concentrated of salt, sugar and vinegar solution. Therefore, measure ingredients carefully when preparing the solution to avoid from shrivelling. The other error is off colour pickles, pickles may turn dark for several reasons. The most common cause is using water with too many minerals, especially iron. To avoid off colour of pickles, do not use iron or brass utensils when preparing pickles.