PhD Oral Defense: Development of a Novel Drying Process for Whole Cranberries Employing Microwave-Osmotic Dehydration Under Continuous Flow Medium Spray (Mwods) Conditions and Microwave-Vacuum (Mwv) Finish-Drying

Osmotic dehydration is a useful process for producing a high quality intermediate moisture product that requires less time in the more intensive finish-drying processes. While previous work established

microwave-osmotic dehydration under spray conditions (MWODS) as a useful means to enhance the moisture loss and product quality while minimizing solids gain, these studies were limited to cut fruit samples which were then hot air finish-dried. Therefore, the current study was focused on applying MWODS to a new product as well as developing a microwave-vacuum (MWV) finish-drying step.