ABSTRACT
By-product utilization in the food industry such as stock produced from cooking or boiling seafood products is a good approach to gain profitability, promote environmental protection, and sustainability. Crab powder used for food seasoning was prepared by utilizing the crab stock, a by-product produced from cooking blue swimming crabs (Portunus pelagicus) using the spray drying process. The main objective of this study was to develop an optimized process of crab powder food seasoning, a value-added product from blue swimming crabs. Physico-chemical properties of the crab powder food seasoning, such as moisture content, water activity, bulk density, solubility, pH and salinity were determined and used to project the optimum conditions set for producing the seasoning. A Plackett-Burman design was used to screen the variables being set, and the Box-Behnken design was used to model the optimum conditions of the processing of crab powder food seasoning using the following variables: cooking time (X1), amount of water (X2) and amount raw crabs (X3). Sensory evaluation was also done to establish the organoleptic properties and the acceptability of the produced seasoning. Result shows a moisture content of 3.95-5.71%, 0.284-0.468 water activity, a bulk density of 0.54-0.79 g/ml, a salinity of 0.1-2.1%, pH of 7.3-8.3, and a general acceptability of 5.14 to 7.57 classified as acceptable. The developed product is a creative approach in addressing the problem on waste or by-product utilization in crabmeat processing.
Keywords: blue swimming crab, stock, crab powder seasoning, spray drying