Discussion

In the making of fruits and vegetable pickles there were a few objectives of this experiment
which were to explain the purpose of each step involved in the making fruits and vegetable
pickles. Other than that it is to explain the function of each ingredient and to reproduce the
pickle with the same technique.

Pickling is the method to preserve food. Food preservation can be defined as the science
which deals with the methods of prevention of decay or spoilage of food. Thus, allowing it to
be store in a fit condition for future use. (Reddy, Feb 2016)

There were a few steps involving in the making of pickles. Firstly, the fruits and vegetable
had been washed to ensure that contaminating material is removed from the fruits and
vegetables. After that the fruits and vegetable were peeled by using knife peeling to remove
unwanted material such as the skin of the fruits. The next step is size reduction where the
fruits were cut into appropriate size it is to improve eating suitability of food and for future
processing. The fruits had been soaked in calcium carbonate solution (CaCO3) for 15 minutes
to improve pickles firmness (Nummers, august 2006). After 15 minutes, the fruits had been
rinses by using tap water. The excess calcium carbonate solution must be removing to
produce safe pickles (Nummers, august 2006). The fruits and vegetable cuts were transferred
into plastic container and the pickle solutions were added into it. In the pickle solution
contains 57g of salts, 900g of vinegars, 480g of water and 343g of sugar. The function of the
salts in the pickle is to extracting the excess water from fruits and vegetable as well as
unlocking flavourful juices, concentrating the flavours and give firm texture. Therefore, the
vinegar functions as preservative and flavouring agent in the pickles and also prevents
spoilage during storage. Sugar is added to increase the rate of fermentation or to make the
product sweeter (nations). After that, the colour, pH, moisture content and total soluble solid
of the pickle solution were recorded before treatment and after four days.

As the result from table 1 shows that the initial reading for the pH is lower than the final
reading. In theoretical, the pH for initial reading should be higher than the final reading
which means the initial process are in alkaline solution and after four days the solution are in
acidic solution. This happened due to some errors. For the total soluble solid (TSS) and the
moisture content, the result shows that the initial reading is higher than the final reading. This
is because of the osmosis process that occurs between the pickle solution and the fruits.
Osmosis proses are the movement of water molecules through a selectively permeable
membrane. Water will move from an area of high solute concentration to an area of low
solute concentration. This process does not require any energy. It is occur naturally and goes
until equilibrium is achieved. Diffusion is the movement of solute, like salts or dissolved
sugars from an area of high solute concentration to an area of low solute concentration. In
pickling water will be extracted from the fruits and vegetable by osmosis. Meanwhile
diffusion will cause the fruits and vegetable to enrich itself with solutes in the brining
solution. (coucquyt, 20 February 2014). From the appendix figure 1 and figure 2 shows the
different colour of solution before treatment and after four days. In figure 1 the colour of the
solution is cloudy compared to the colour of solution in figure 2, where in figure 2 the colour
of the solution is clear. This is because of the presence of vinegar as an acid solution that
changed the dark colour of liquid to clear liquid. Pickles do not require any colorant because
their natural colour is acceptable. However, to create a standardized product and overcome
the effect of processes such as bleaching, manufacturers often add colour. To inhibit colour
changes in pickles, sulphur dioxide is added.

There was little possible error in the making of pickle. First is shrivelling. Shrivelling
happens in very sweet or sour pickles. It causes from using too concentrated of salt, sugar and
vinegar solution. Therefore, measure ingredients carefully when preparing the solution to
avoid from shrivelling. The other error is off colour pickles, pickles may turn dark for several
reasons. The most common cause is using water with too many minerals, especially iron. To
avoid off colour of pickles, do not use iron or brass utensils when preparing pickles.