Osmotic dehydration of mapará fillets has been used as a pre-treatment before dehydration and refrigeration of food as a means of reducing product moisture content. The aim of this study was to optimize mass transfer occurring during osmotic dehydration of mapará using the response surface methodology. Osmotic dehydration was carried out following a 2³ complete factorial design, with eight factorial, three central and six axial points, totalizing 17 assays, where the values of the dependent variables, weight loss (PP), water loss (PA), solid gain (GS), GS/PA and tiobarbituric acid (TBA), are a function of the independent variables, temperature, concentration of NaCl and immersion time. The statistic analysis, applied to the experimental data was carried out using the pure error and the residual SS. Applying the response surface methodology, the best condition of convergence of lower weight loss, greater water loss and lower salt gain corresponded to a sodium chloride concentration of 22%, temperature of 46 °C and time of 7 hours.
mapará; sodium chloride; concentration; temperature; immersion time
