A two-stage convective air and vacuum freeze-drying technique for bamboo shoots

To obtain dehydrated bamboo shoot slices of high quality, a two-stage hybrid method of drying was tested to see if it could be cost-effective. While freeze-drying provides the best quality bamboo shoot it is a very expensive process. In this study, the drying techniques (a) hot airflow drying followed by vacuum freeze drying and (b) the reverse of the process (a) were examined. The quality of bamboo shoots dried by process (b) was found to be approximately equal to that of freeze-dried bamboo shoots but at a significantly lower cost. This paper reports results comparing the two processes in terms of energy consumption and the physico-chemical properties of the dried bamboo.