Effects of blanching treatments on quality of carrot pulp and its processing optimization

In order to improve the quality of carrot pulp, the fresh carrot (cv: Eastern Six-inch) was taken as raw materials, and the content of β-carotene in carrot pulp was determined by high performance liquid chromatography. Effects of four different blanching methods, including hot water blanching, steam blanching, vitamin C blanching and citric acid blanching treatments on the content of β-carotene in carrot pulp were studied, and the blanching process technology was optimized by Box-Behnken response surface method. The results showed that the citric acid blanching was the best blanching method, and the best blanching conditions were as follow: the citric acid mass fraction was 1.4%, blanching time was 18 min, blanching temperature was 84℃, the mass fraction of β-carotene was 23.59 mg/kg, which matched with the predict value by the model. The research provides a reference for improving the quality of carrot pulp.