EFFECTS OF FRYING TEMPERATURE AND TIME ON MOISTURE LOSS AND OIL ABSORPTION OF COLOMBIAN QUESO COSTEÑO

Frying is one of the most widely used food transformation processes in the world, due to its speed and the sensory characteristics acquired by fried products. Advances in food technology have helped to describe the mass transfer processes that occur during the frying of some products. However, although these properties are described in most foods for industrial use, few studies have been carried out on artisanal products such as Colombian Queso Costello. Therefore, the main objective of this work was to evaluate the processes of moisture and oil transfer during the frying of this product, using a multilevel design 32, with two factors and three levels each other: temperature (140 degrees C, 160 degrees C and 180 degrees C) and frying time (60, 120 and 180 seconds). The results obtained showed that the moisture content is reduced with increasing time and temperature, and on the contrary, the amount of oil increased under the same physical conditions, which may be due to the high moisture fraction and the short processing time. In conclusion, the increase in temperature and frying time resulted in lower moisture content and higher oil absorption.