Scientists working at the Central Arid Zone Research Institute at Jodhpur come up with new ideas to create value added products from pomegranate fruits. These products are squash, jelly and anardhana.
Pomegranate squash- Mature cracked fruits of pomegranate ‘Jalore Seedless’ are cut into pieces and arils (edible portion) are separated. The arils are passed through the juicer for extraction of juice. Its fruits yield 40-50 % of juice, having TSS (190Brix) and acidity (0.38%) as citric acid. The juice is kept for some time (2-3 hrs) to settle down the coarse particles. Then supernatant solution is siphoned of leaving the coarse particles. Sugar syrup is prepared by dissolving sugar (1 kg) and citric acid (11 g) in water (1.5 litres) by heating. The syrup is filtered mixed with juice (1 litre) after cooling.
The sodium benzoate (2.8 g) is dissolve in small amount of water and mixed well with squash filled immediately in sterilized bottles leaving 2’’ headspace and sealed airtight. It is ready to serve in the ratio of 1:4 (one part squash with 4 parts of water)
Pomegranate jelly: Take 1 litre juice and warm it. On its first boiling, synthetic pectin (10 g) is added to it. Raise the temperature so that it is easily dissolved. Then sugar (1 kg) is added. Now the whole mass is concentrated by heating on mild flame till the end point reaches and stir it occasionally. The citric acid (10 g) is added at last. After 22 minutes its TSS reaches to 680 Brix. Fill it in bottles. Allow it to set for overnight. It is ready for use.
Anardana: Sour type, hard seed pomegranate ‘Basin Seedless’ and hybrid (‘Gulsa Red’ x ‘Jalore Seedless’) are quite suited for anardana-making. After treating with sodium benzoate (600 ppm) for 10 minutes the arils are dehydrated in a drier at 450 C for 48 hrs to 10-12 % moisture content. Thus the product is ready. It has attractive brown colour. It can be stored for a long time (one year) in glass jars.
There is also potential for application of ASTRA driers in the silk reeling industry for drying and stifling cocoons and for drying the pupa which remain after the completion of reeling. The concepts used in the development of fuel efficient ASTRA drier have been also successfully utilized in flue curing Virginia tobacco where the requirement of fuelwood for obtaining 1 kilogram of cured tobacco has been brought down to 3 kg from 6-12 kg.
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