JOURNAL OF FOOD PROCESS ENGINEERING, cilt.46, sa.e14248., ss.1-15, 2023 (SCI-Expanded)
Boza is a traditional fermented cereal-based beverage, which should be consumedwithin 3–5 days after production due to its short shelf-life. Spray drying process is anexcellent option to overcome this problem to make the product least perishable. Theoptimal spray drying conditions for boza powder production in a laboratory-scalespray dryer were investigated using, Response Surface Methodology. Air inlet temper-ature and feed flow rate were the main parameters that affected the responses suchas powder yield, moisture content, cell viability, particle size, and solubility. The opti-mum spray drying conditions were 148C air inlet temperature, 9C feed temperature,and 10 ml/min feed flow rate. At these optimum conditions, deviations between pre-dictive and experimental values were found very low. A 1.5 log cfu/g reduction in lac-tic acid bacteria (LAB) viability was achieved, however instant properties of bozapowder should be improved by agglomeration processes. Laboratory and pilot scaleswere also compared at the determined optimum drying conditions. Approximately 0.4log cfu/g difference in LAB viability was observed between the two scales