Abstract
Red dragon fruit (Hylocereus polyrhizus) is a tropical fruit rich in nutrients vitamin C, vitamin A, protein, polyphenols, and flavonoids. The fruit can be, therefore, processed into different high valued products. Concentrated fruit juice had a long storage life with lesser transportation cost than that of fresh juice. Juice of red dragon fruit from Binh Thuan Province in Vietnam was concentrated using novel evaporation launched under ambient pressure and moderate temperature named JEVA. The obtained concentrates were from 13.8°Brix to above 60°Brix, while at the same time, it allowed retaining more than 90% polyphenol content (92.89%) and flavonoid content (98.58%); the retention of vitamin C and betacyanin content was 70.17% and 74%, respectively. Meanwhile, the evaporation under vacuum technology at 40°C allows retaining approx. 57% vitamin C and 40% betacyanin in red dragon fruit juice concentrate. With betacyanin retention of 85.76% and vitamin C retention of 81.55% after 8-weeks-storage at 4°C, dragon fruit concentrate obtained by JEVA evaporation at 35°C showed much higher stability than that of fresh juices. These obtained results suggested that JEVA evaporation can offer a better product than vacuum evaporation. JEVA evaporation is highly potential for launching in a large scale to process red dragon fruit juice.
