JP4637945B2 - Umeboshi production method - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a method for producing umeboshi, and in particular, umeboshi (salted umeboshi) with a lower salt content than ordinary umeboshi, and umeboshi without salt (unsalted umeboshi) are produced by a completely new method. The present invention relates to a method for producing umeboshi. Moreover, this invention relates to the manufacturing method of a ume honey, the manufacturing method of a plum juice, and the preservation | save method of a ume raw material.

  Umeboshi, made by salting plums and drying them, is one of the traditional foods in Japan and is very familiar to Japanese people. Umeboshi is also rich in nutrients that contribute to the maintenance of human health, as is apparent from the fact that it has been used for medicinal purposes since ancient times. Among them, “citric acid”, which is abundant in plums, is said to be effective in relieving fatigue and is a constituent of “citric acid circuit” which is an important biochemical reaction circuit for humans. Therefore, umeboshi has attracted much attention in recent years as a health food. However, umeboshi has a problem that it contains a large amount of salt because it is produced after salting the ume. Since excessive intake of salt becomes one of the causes of lifestyle-related diseases, plum pickles are attracting attention as a health food, but their high salt content has become a barrier to eating plum pickles. ing.

  In addition, in order to avoid such a problem, conventionally, umeboshi having a low salinity concentration has been manufactured by reducing the amount of salt when salting ume. However, such a pickled plum has a problem that it has a low salinity, so that it is likely to rot or mold easily in the whole manufacturing process.

  In addition, there is a method for producing plum dried with such a low salt concentration by exposing the plum dried by a normal method to salt removal by exposing it to water, but in this method, the production of plum dried is completed. Further, since it is necessary to carry out another process called “salt removal”, there is a problem that the work process becomes complicated, and it takes time and cost. Furthermore, when salt is removed by exposure to water, there is also a problem that even the nutrients and flavors of plum dried out.

  Conventionally, it has been considered that the use of salt in the production of umeboshi is indispensable in order to suppress the progress of decay and generation of mold and to produce a high quality umeboshi (Patent Documents 1 to 3).

  In Patent Document 4, white plums are produced by irradiating raw plums with far infrared rays, but the heating temperature needs to be 90 ° C. or less, and long-term storage cannot be performed.

  Patent Document 5 is to heat green plum or fully-ripened plum with heated steam to a semi-ripe or fully-ripened plum state, and this method cannot obtain dried plums.

  Patent document 6 freezes the fruit of a ume, immerses this in cold water or warm water, squeezes it to obtain a fruit juice, immerses the fruit of the ume after squeezing in ume vinegar, and sun-dries it to produce an umeboshi. A method is disclosed. Umeboshi obtained by this method is made with ume vinegar that contains most of the useful components contained in plums because cold water or hot water is added to frozen plums, and contains a large amount of salt. Since the plum was dried at a low price, and the obtained plum juice was added with a large amount of water, it was not only expensive for concentration and heat sterilization, but also unsuitable for use as a seasoning.

Moreover, raw plums do not contain umefural as a useful ingredient.
JP 2000-50832 A JP 2000-139395 A JP 2001-327273 A Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-28055 JP 2007-129994 A JP-A-53-20456

  An object of the present invention is to provide a dried plum that can be stored for a long time without using salt.

  Moreover, an object of this invention is to provide simply the effective plum juice, plum meat extract, and ume nectar derived from raw plum.

  Furthermore, an object of the present invention is to produce an active ingredient derived from raw plums such as umefural.

  Furthermore, an object of this invention is to provide the preservation method of the plum raw material suitable for manufacture of an umeboshi or seasoning.

  Under such circumstances, the present inventor has intensively studied a method for producing dried ume containing abundant useful component contents without impairing the nutrients and flavors of the plum material. As a result, the present inventor found that the above problems can be achieved by heating and drying the plum raw material at a high temperature of 100 ° C. or higher, and completed the present invention.

The present invention provides the following method for producing umeboshi, a method for producing ume nectar or plum juice, and a method for preserving plum raw materials.
Item 1. A method for producing umeboshi, characterized in that the ume material is dried by heating at a temperature in the range of 100 ° C to 350 ° C.
Item 2. Item 2. The method for producing umeboshi according to Item 1, wherein the plum material is at least one selected from the group consisting of ume and yellow plum.
Item 3. Item 3. The method for producing umeboshi according to Item 1 or 2, wherein the plum material is a plum material having a hole in the skin.
Item 4. A method for producing honey, which is leached from a plum raw material, wherein the skin of the plum raw material is pierced and then dried by heating at a temperature in the range of 100 to 350 ° C.
Item 5. A method for preserving plum raw materials, comprising drying the plum raw materials by heating them at a temperature in the range of 100 ° C to 350 ° C.
Item 6. A method for producing plum juice, which comprises freezing and pressing a plum raw material.
Item 7. A method for producing umeboshi, which comprises drying an ume raw material to inactivate enzymes and then drying.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to produce dried ume without salting the plum, so it is possible to produce dried umeboshi (unsalted plum dried) that does not contain salt. In addition, by adding salt to the produced unsalted umeboshi as appropriate, plums that have been salted for a short time or ume soaked in a very small amount of salt as raw materials for the production method according to the present invention, It is also possible to produce umeboshi (reduced salt umeboshi) with less salt content. Therefore, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide consumers with a plum dried product that does not need to worry about excessive intake of salt.

  According to the present invention, in the process of producing umeboshi, no salting step is required. Therefore, even if machine drying is used, the production of umeboshi, which has conventionally taken at least one week after salting, can be started from the harvest of plums. It can be done within a few hours. Also, in the present invention, when drying plums by heating in a dry manner, it is possible to use a drying device such as an oven, a microwave oven, a food drying device, a dried fruit production device, etc. Compared with the manufacturing method of the umeboshi by the sun required for 30 to 60 days, the production time of a umeboshi can be shortened significantly. Moreover, in the present invention, since the moisture in the plum raw material is evaporated by heating, when seasoning the obtained plum dried with a seasoning liquid, the seasoning liquid is excellent in permeability, and easily seasoned, etc. Can be processed. In addition, although the sun-dried is not required in the production method according to the present invention, the ume-boshi obtained by the production method of the present invention may be further sun-dried and aged.

  The pickled ume obtained according to the present invention is heated at a temperature of 100 ° C. or higher, preferably 130 ° C. or higher, so that the spoilage bacteria are killed, so that it can be stored for a long time, and a useful component such as umefural is produced. .

  According to the present invention, the appearance and softness of the umeboshi are not different from conventional umeboshi, and a umeboshi that does not contain salt can be produced. Therefore, it is also very suitable as a raw material for cooking and seasoning. Plums are not dried and honey and plum juice can be produced. Therefore, it is possible to use umeboshi even in dishes and seasonings (plum soy sauce, ume miso, umeshu, etc.) that have been restricted in use by the amount of salt contained in umeboshi. The range of use will be greatly expanded. For example, it is conceivable that umeboshi is also used in confectionery and foreign cuisine other than Japanese cuisine.

  In the present invention, since the enzyme contained in the plum is inactivated when the plum dried is produced, the decay of the plum due to the action of the enzyme can be prevented. Plum contains amygdalin, which is a highly toxic hydrogen cyanide, due to the action of the enzyme contained in the plum. In the present invention, the enzyme contained in the plum is deactivated when producing plum dried. Therefore, generation of this hydrogen cyanide can also be prevented.

  In this invention, since drying can be performed artificially, the drying degree of plum drying can be adjusted. For this reason, it is possible to produce semi-dried umeboshi and umeboshi with a very low water content, such as umeboshi from Kyoto Kitano Tenjin, freely and in a short time.

  Plum drying according to the present invention can remove moisture in a short time by performing drying artificially, so that, even if the plum is not salted, in the whole manufacturing process, decay or mold occurs There is nothing to do.

  If you make a hole in the ume bark with a needle before drying the plum, the honey will be leached out during the heating process. By collecting this, you can obtain both umeboshi and ume honey at the same time. In addition, when the water | moisture content of a plum raw material is leached by the osmotic pressure of salt, since the citric acid is also leached at the same time, the citric acid content of the umeboshi is lowered and the sourness of the umeboshi is reduced. In the case of plum dried without a hole in the plum skin, citric acid is not lost, so it becomes very sour plum dried, and when a hole is drilled in the plum skin, citric acid will leach out, so the saltless plum dried of the present invention is The sourness is about the same as a traditional salted plum.

  In the method for producing umeboshi according to the present invention, when the ume is heated, the skin is softened by the heating, so that even in comparison with the conventional umeboshi, there is almost no difference in the appearance and softness. Can produce high quality, very easy to eat plum dried.

  Moreover, in the manufacturing method of the pickled plum which concerns on this invention, since the plum is not salted, the water | moisture content (plum vinegar) which comes out of a plum by the effect | action of an osmotic pressure does not generate | occur | produce. Therefore, along with this plum vinegar, plum nutrients and fruit flavors that make plum flavor do not flow out of the plum, and furthermore, it is not necessary to consider the problem of processing plum plum at the production site of plum dried There are also advantages.

  In the present invention, the plum juice obtained by squeezing the plum raw material after freezing is low-viscosity and free flowing, and has high transparency. Moreover, the plum extract obtained by evaporating the water | moisture content of the obtained plum juice becomes solid like agar thru | or jelly, and since it becomes soft when heated, it is also excellent in handling.

  The method for producing umeboshi according to the present invention comprises heating a plum raw material to a temperature of 100 to 350 ° C. to (1) inactivate enzymes contained in the plum raw material, (2) killing bacteria, and (3) From plum raw materials, the moisture content can be reduced to make umeboshi that can be stored for a long period of time, and (4) useful ingredients not originally contained in plum raw materials such as umefural can be produced. The purpose of heating the plum raw material is to dry it by evaporating moisture from the plum raw material. Specifically, the heating is desirably performed in air. Although it is possible to heat in a closed system in the heating device, it is desirable to heat in an open system, circulate air, or introduce dry outside air in order to evaporate the moisture of the plum raw material.

  Umeboshi and pickles are generally reduced in water content based on osmotic pressure due to the addition of salt, and the growth of microorganisms is suppressed by high salt concentration, enabling long-term storage. In the case of increasing the storage stability by losing moisture such as fruits and vegetables having a high moisture content, when heating above 100 ° C., it is heated in a wet manner using superheated steam as shown in Patent Document 5, or dry-type. In the case of heating at a temperature of less than 90 ° C., preferably 75 ° C. or less as shown in Patent Document 4, when heated to 100 ° C. or more, which is the boiling point of water, a dried object (eg radish in the case of pickles) , Chinese cabbage, cucumbers, eggplants, turnips, etc.) surface moisture was rapidly lost, causing surface cracks and tissue destruction, impairing commercial value. Actually, when the ume raw material was heated at 100 ° C. or higher, the epidermis dried and became bulky, and an appearance different from that of plum dried was obtained. However, when the high-temperature dried product of the plum raw material is left for 5 to 10 hours, the present inventor has noticed that the epidermis becomes moist as the product temperature is lowered, and has an appearance similar to that of plum dried. This is thought to be due to the moisture content or fluidity component moving from the inside to the surface of the plum raw material after high-temperature drying, becoming uniform throughout, and the skin being moist. The obtained umeboshi was indistinguishable in appearance from the usual umeboshi dried in the sun after salting. Furthermore, it has been clarified that, when dried at a high temperature of 100 ° C. or more as in the present invention, the moisture content of the whole plum dried can be suppressed, and combined with the sterilization effect due to the high temperature, enables the long-term storage of plum dried. Although not wishing to be bound by theory, since the plum material contains a large amount of citric acid, it is excessive due to the high water retention capacity of citric acid even when heated and dried under severe conditions of 100 ° C or higher. It is considered that the drying of the material does not occur. In addition, since a large amount of citric acid is retained, even if a portion of the moisture is retained, no spoilage occurs and the storability is excellent.

  The heating temperature is about 100 to 350 ° C, preferably about 110 to 250 ° C, more preferably about 120 to 200 ° C, and particularly preferably about 130 to 160 ° C. The heating and drying time is about 30 minutes to 5 hours, preferably about 1 to 4 hours. The higher the temperature, the shorter the time. A heating temperature of 130 ° C. or higher is preferable because production of umefural increases. Moreover, since decomposition | disassembly of an organic substance may occur when temperature exceeds 350 degreeC, long-time heating becomes difficult.

  In the present invention, this heating step loses about 10 to 50% by weight of water of the ume raw material without holes, and in the case of the ume raw material with holes, the water and contents are combined to 15 to 50%. A weight loss of about% by weight is caused by the heat drying process. In the heating and drying step, moisture is lost rapidly at first, and the rate of decrease in moisture content becomes slower as the heating time becomes longer. In the present invention, it is desirable that the moisture content of the umeboshi is low, and it is desirable to continue the heat drying until the rate of decrease in the moisture content becomes slow. Under the above-mentioned heat drying conditions, it is desirable to heat dry the plum raw material skin to a dry state.

  As the equipment used to heat and dry plum raw materials, ordinary drying equipment that can control the temperature within a certain range can be widely used, for example, oven, range, food drying equipment, dried fruit production equipment, hot air drying equipment, etc. it can.

  Plum raw materials used in the present invention include green plums such as green plums, yellow plums (ripe plums), and fully-ripe plums. A product obtained by freezing raw plums or a product obtained by thawing after freezing and removing a part of plum juice can be used as a raw material for plums. By removing part of the plum juice, the amount of citric acid is reduced, and a plum material with reduced sourness is obtained. In addition, plum juice contains a large amount of water and has an effect of facilitating drying. Plum raw material is yellow plum or fully-ripened plum when it is eaten in the same way as traditional plum dried with plenty of salt as it is or seasoned or colored, and when using dried plum dried after heat drying as a seasoning, Either Ome or Yellow Plum may be used, or ume ground. Since plum raw materials are harvested in large quantities at once, it has been necessary to produce a large amount of salted plums and plum wine in the past, but the dried plums obtained by the production method of the present invention are contained in sealed containers. Since long-term storage is possible at room temperature, it is preferable because it may be processed little by little as necessary.

  In addition, not only plum fruit (raw plum), but also plum fruit, that is, the fruit of the plum has been partially or completely removed from the plum fruit, and the plum fruit has been crushed. Also included are those that have been pretreated, such as stuffed, crushed, and grated.

  The plum raw material may be one having a hole in the skin or one having no hole. The hole can be opened by piercing the skin with a needle. If there is a hole in the ume material, honey will flow out of the hole during heating and drying. By collecting this, ume nectar can be obtained simultaneously with umeboshi. Plum nectar contains a large amount of citric acid, so when a hole is made in the pericarp, the citric acid content in the umeboshi is reduced, and the citric acid content can be comparable to that of a normal salted umeboshi. . On the other hand, if the pericarp is not pierced, the components of plum containing citric acid are confined in the pickled plum, so that it has a high nutritional value and a sour plum dried based on citric acid. By adjusting the size and number of holes in the skin of the plum material, it is possible to freely adjust the amount and sourness of the fruit juice flowing out of the plum. To collect honey in the heat drying process, for example, put the ume raw material on a support such as a net that passes ume honey, perform the heat drying process, and collect the syrup falling through the opening of the net. It implements by the appropriate means.

  Moreover, by making a hole in the pericarp of the plum and heating and drying it, it is possible to obtain a ume honey that is transparent and hardly discolors even after a predetermined time. Unlike the fruit juice obtained by simply squeezing the plum, the ume honey obtained in this way is not easily discolored, and is therefore very suitable as a seasoning or the like.

  In addition, even when a ume raw material is not pierced, if a plum dried product is manufactured by the method of this invention and the obtained plum dried product is filled in a container, a ume honey may leach out. Plum honey obtained in this way can also be used as a seasoning in the same manner as umeboshi.

  In general, “plum pickled” refers to pickled plums and dried them (Japanese Agricultural Standards). In this specification, plums that have been heat-dried without being salted unless otherwise specified. The raw material will be referred to as “pickled plum” for convenience.

  In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the heat-drying step of the plum raw material is performed by arranging the plum raw material in an open container such as an oven vat, and storing the container in a suitable drying device and the plum raw material at a temperature of 100 to 350 ° C. Dry to produce umeboshi. In this case, it is preferable to use a plum raw material that is harvested and removed from the oven bat, or from the harvested and removed ume. This is because the use of such ume makes it possible to produce unsalted umeboshi very easily. In this case, it is more preferable that the heating temperature in the dryer is in the range of 130 ° C. to 160 ° C., and the heating time is in the range of 80 minutes to 100 minutes. This is because the plum dried with the highest quality can be produced very efficiently with respect to the present invention by being within these ranges.

  One of the characteristics of the present invention is that the enzyme contained in the ume raw material is deactivated by heating and dried, thereby preventing the rot and mold generation in the process of producing umeboshi. From this point of view, by freezing the plum raw material, the enzyme contained in it is inactivated, and the tissue is destroyed, so that the plum raw material is prevented from being altered, and easily rich in nutrients such as citric acid by pressing or filtering. Plum juice can be obtained.

  Plum juice obtained by freezing and squeezing plum raw material becomes a very free flowing, low-viscosity fruit juice. This plum juice is highly transparent. When the moisture of plum juice obtained by freezing and pressing the plum raw material is evaporated, it becomes agar-like or jelly-like, unlike conventional plum extract with very high viscosity. Since this agar-like or jelly-like plum meat extract is easily softened by heating, it can be easily added to foods and the like, and since it contains a large amount of natural citric acid components, it can be suitably taken as a supplement. Conventional plum juice has been obtained, for example, by immersing raw plums in syrup, but the plum juice of the present invention has no additive like syrup and is suitable as a raw material for various seasonings or as a component of beverages. Used. Although not wishing to be bound by theory, the reason why low-viscosity plum juice is obtained in the present invention is that the structure of plum cells or pericarp is destroyed by freezing plum raw materials, and moisture is easily released. In addition, it is considered that the ingredients that increase the viscosity such as fiber and pectin contained in the plum material are left in the pressed residue, and the fruit juice does not contain an amount sufficient to increase the viscosity. Grated raw material of plums becomes viscous (paste-like), and it is considered difficult to obtain low-viscosity plum juice by filtering it. Citric acid of yellow plums (ripe plums) It has never been used. Conventionally, citric acid is often discarded together with the salt. By adding a freezing process to unsalted umeboshi production, unsalted citric acid can be easily extracted and fully utilized. Of course, low-viscosity plum juice can be obtained by soaking in syrup, but this has limited use because it contains a large amount of sugar. The plum juice of the present invention is very preferable because it can be produced without adding additives such as sugar.

  In the present invention, the plum raw material can be dried by heating at 100 ° C. or higher, but if necessary, other conventional drying means may be further employed. For example, a means of freezing the plum raw material after heating, sublimating the moisture in a vacuum state, and drying may be employed. The umeboshi obtained in this way can easily obtain plum juice containing citric acid by pressing, filtration, or the like.

  In the present specification, a hole in the pericarp means all states in which the plum flesh is exposed from a part of the pericarp so that the ume nectar flows out of the plum. Therefore, in the present invention, the hole formed in the skin includes a state where a part of the skin is damaged until it reaches the pulp.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail based on examples.
Example 1
Ome, yellow plum, and fully-ripened plums were arranged in an open vat and dried by heating at 160 to 180 ° C. for about 60 minutes in an oven to obtain dried plums of the present invention. When the memefural contained in the obtained umeboshi was measured by liquid chromatography, the result was 74.3 mg / 100 g umeboshi. The high nutritional value of the pickled ume obtained by the production method of the present invention was confirmed.

Immediately after drying at 160-180 ° C. for about 60 minutes, the dried plums changed to a brownish color, and the green plums remained in a slightly green state. All of the epidermis was dry and crisp, and it seemed that it was not dried with plums, and the present inventor considered that the dried product immediately after the heat drying was unsuccessful. However, when this was left for more than 5 hours, surprisingly the epidermis became moist as the product temperature dropped to room temperature, and the appearance similar to that of the traditional plum blossom came to appear.
Example 2
The yellow plum was dried under the following heating and drying conditions, the weight was measured, and the amount of water evaporated was calculated.
(1) A hole was made in 40 g of yellow plum (ripe), and 30 g of dried plum was obtained by heating at 160 ° C. for 1 hour.
(2) No holes were made in 40 g of yellow plum (completely ripened), and 35 g of dried plum was obtained by heating at 160 ° C. for 1 hour.
(3) No holes were made in 40 g of yellow plum (ripe), and 23 g of dried plum was obtained at 160 ° C. for 1 hour and a half.

As described above, a considerable amount of water was evaporated by the heat drying process of the present invention. All of these umeboshi had the same appearance as the umeboshi obtained by the conventional method.
Example 3
A hole was made in 1 kg of yellow plum (ripe) with Kenzan and heated at 160 ° C. for 1 hour to obtain 80 cc of plum honey. Thereafter, the dried umeboshi was stored in a refrigerator for one year, and about 30 cc (total 110 cc) of ume honey was obtained.
Example 4
An unsalted plum dried from 1 kg of raw plums in the same manner as in Example 1 was immersed in white liquor (about 200 cc) to collect a 300 cc solution of citric acid. This was a brown, black tea-like color.
Example 5
Raw plum was frozen as follows to obtain plum juice.
1. Put ripe plums pierced at Kenzan into a freezer Use a general household freezer (temperature -12 ℃ to -18 ℃)
Do not wrap, lay flat and freeze. The perforated plums were completely frozen overnight in the freezer. There was no exudation of juice from the epidermis.
2. When the frozen plums were taken out of the freezer and left at room temperature for 30 minutes, the surface began to melt and the juice flowed out of the holes.
3. When the above 2 was put into a two-layered colander, the exuded fruit juice flowed from the gap of the container to the lower tray and collected. When the frozen plums flow out of the fruit juice and become about half the weight, unsalted plums can be made by performing the heat drying of the present invention. Or it is also possible to heat-dry in said 2 steps. Even if it is not heat-dried immediately after harvesting, it is also possible to take out the frozen storage outside the season and make it into a plum dried product. In the case of refrigerated storage, ripening will rot and rotten, but in the case of frozen storage, there is an advantage that it will not rot. Plums without drilling can be made into frozen plums after freezing and drying, but it is the drilling type that discharges citric acid and easily adjusts the acidity.
4. By applying pressure (squeezing) a little so as not to break the frozen ume peel obtained in 3 above, almost all fruit juice can be taken out. In addition, it is preferable in order to obtain as much plum juice as possible by taking out seeds during the pressing step.

  After freezing 1 kg of yellow plum, fruit juice was squeezed to obtain 760 cc (727 g) of fruit juice from 1 kg of fully-ripe plum.

  The umeboshi, ume nectar, plum juice, etc. obtained in the present invention can be used for cooking as they are or can be eaten. These can be prepared to any salt concentration from salt-free to light salt to concentrated salt, and various seasonings can be freely performed because of salt-free. For example, it can be seasoned or scented with honey, brown sugar, lemon-flavored flavors, flavors, herbs or the like. Furthermore, it is also suitable for use in plum soy sauce, plum miso and the like.

  In addition, when Ome is used as a raw material for plums, even if it is eaten as it is, it contains a large amount of useful ingredients such as umefural, which is useful for health promotion.

Claims (3)

A method for producing umeboshi, characterized in that a plum raw material is dried by heating at a temperature in the range of 130 ° C. to 200 ° C. for 30 minutes to 5 hours , and then the product temperature is lowered to room temperature . The method for producing umeboshi according to claim 1, wherein the plum material is at least one selected from the group consisting of ume and yellow plum. The method for producing umeboshi according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the plum material is a plum material having a hole in the pericarp.