Abstract:To explore the changes in food quality indicators of air-dried crucian carp products during different processing stages, a low-salt salting and natural air-drying process was adopted to determine quality indicators such as salt mass fraction, water activity, weight loss rate, pH, and more during the processing, supplemented by sensory evaluation. The results showed that during the processing, the salt mass fraction of the air-dried crucian carp products increased gradually, while water activity and weight loss rate showed a decreasing trend. Meanwhile, the pH value decreased gradually in the salting stage and began to rise again in the air-dried stage. On the fourth day of drying, the sensory score reached the highest point, with a salt mass fraction of (3.720±0.079)%, a water activity of 0.67, a weight loss rate of 64.92%, and a pH value of 6.50. In the correlation analysis, water activity was significantly correlated with salt mass fraction and weight loss rate.
