Drying of Shiitake Mushroom : Effect of Drying on Lenthionine Content

Abstract

The objective of this research was to study the drying rate and the effect ofdrying on the quality with consideration on lenthionine; the specific flavor of shiitakemushroom. The result indicated that the rate of drying was significantly affected bytemperature and the experimental model used for prediction the drying rate fit reasonablewell with the experimental data. For the analysis of lenthionine, the method was modifiedas follows, :- dried shiitake mushroom was left in distilled water at 60°C for 30 min.and then extracted with hexanes using soxhlet method. The quantity of lenthionine inthe extracted solvent was determined by gas chromatography. The amount of lenthioninefoundinfreshanddriedshiitakemushroomwere2.78x10^-5and3.84-8.92x10^-5g/gdb.mushroom, respectively. This indicated that the drying process affected the quantity oflenthionine. The result of drying at various conditions showed that the quantity oflenthionine decreased with the increase in the temperature and time. For the step changein temperature during drying process, 40°C for 6 hours and then 60°C for another 6hours, the amount of mushroom flavor was higher than that was developed by theconstant drying condition.