Standardization of pre-treatments for the preparation of dried arils from wild pomegranate.

Pre-treatments for drying of wild pomegranate arils were standardized to check discolouration of dried arils. Steam blanching of arils for 30 s followed by sulphur fumigation at 0.3% for 60 min was found suitable as they took minimum time to dry a given tray load, and had minimum non-enzymatic browning, furfural, hydroxyl methyl furfural and moisture contents. The dried arils of the standardized pre-treatment recorded maximum scores for sensory characteristics like colour, texture, taste, aroma and overall acceptability.