Evaluation of Carbonic Maceration Effect as a Pre-Treatment on the Drying Process of Strawberry
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Manuscript presented for review is a very interesting study on evaluation of carbonic maceration effect as a pre-treatment on the drying process. The work is highly scientific, it is carefully prepared, but it should be corrected before publication, details are provided below.
In the work, as a result of the planned experiment, the most favorable CO2 maceration parameters were selected for the quality characteristics of strawberries. A lot of variables have been introduced ie temperature, pressure, time for the maceration and/or drying process. It would be advantageous to set one or a max. two drying temperatures of 65 or 70 °C, most often used during industrial drying of strawberries in convection dryers. Then select the remaining parameters of the maceration process and the related drying time.
Title: title is too long. please shorten it, e.g. Evaluation of carbonic maceration effect as a pre-treatment on the drying process of strawberry.
The work concerned the examination of the influence of CO2 maceration on the quality characteristics of strawberries subjected to the drying process, I am wondering about the choice of material for the research, why the research was carried out on organic fruit, would the results of the research carried out on conventional fruits differ? Certainly not. I propose to specify the type of tested fruit in the research material, not in the title or other parts of the manuscript.
Abstract: please rephrase the abstract. It should contain the following parts in an abbreviated farm: introduction, research purpose, material and methods, obtained results, comclusion.
Introduction: in the introduction, please describe in more detail the CO2 maceration process: how this process is carried out, what apparatus it requires.
Materials and Methods: in the part concerning the description of the testing material, there is no data on the mass of the strawberry samples used for the tests, such information appears in the subsection Carbonic maceration pre-treatment, but it is not clear whether such a mass of samples was dried. The weight of the samples will influence the drying time.
Table 2: could the values in the table not be arranged according to similar values, e.g. for temperatures occurring one after another? It would help to notice some dependency. Too many variables were accepted.
Was drying carried out directly after maceration or at the same time? Based on the information given in the description in point 2.3 it is not clear.
Point 2.7. In what temperature range was the water activity measured?
Point 2.15. There is no description of the results concerning the texture characteristics of strawberries in the manuscript.
Results
Lines 231-248 and 262-272: Please provide the results described in this section in the table.
Line 251: Details of the Box-Behnken citation are missing.
Tabel 3: Please enter the name of the tested parameters in the first line in Table 3. Is it possible to present the obtained values taking into account the increasing drying time of the samples?
What are the relationships described in Table 3? In the manuscript, there is no description of the results obtained.
Lines 300-308: Under what conditions of treatment of the samples the described values were obtained?
Table 5: In the first column of table 5, please insert the unit next to each marked parameter.
Point 3.3. Please change the mane of this paragtaph.
Figure 7. What were the maceration and drying parameters of the samples shown in Figure 7?
Lines 569-588: Which samples does this description apply to?
Author Response
Dear Reviwer,
First of all, I would like to thank you and for your kind suggestions. Your comments were carefully considered, and the manuscript was revised accordingly. Now we are resubmitting our revised manuscript to article submission system. Please see the attachment.
Best Regards,
Dr. Muhammed Mustafa ÖZÇELİK
Email: d1740119004@ogr.sdu.edu.tr
Suleyman Demirel University
Isparta, Turkey
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The work was written in an interesting way. The research was properly conducted. The summary results from the conducted experiments.
However, there are minor deficiencies in the paper:
57-56: The CM technique has recently been used as a pretreatment application before drying some fruits and[17–22]. (delete and)
136: 2.7. Chapter Water activity - more details
214: Cp; specific heat of air (kcal/kg/C) - C?, describe C. Probably kcal/kg*K should be.
290: ... in the drying processes. To our best knowledge, no study was ... - . *(dot) should be
Author Response
Dear Reviwer,
First of all, I would like to thank you and for your kind suggestions. Your comments were carefully considered, and the manuscript was revised accordingly. Now we are resubmitting our revised manuscript to article submission system. Please see the attachment.
Best Regards,
Dr. Muhammed Mustafa ÖZÇELİK
Email: d1740119004@ogr.sdu.edu.tr
Suleyman Demirel University
Isparta, Turkey
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
1、In line 33 ,the first reference is [64]rather than [1], why?
2、In line 71 , when the moisture content of strawberry below 10%, what is the basis for the end of the drying process? Please define the aw abbreviation when it appears for the first time in the main text.
3、Compared to other treatment methods, what is the advantages of CM treatment.
4、If drying temperature is the independent variable, then drying time should also be the independent variable, not the dependent variable. Please explain the reason. During the drying process, how do you control the drying time when you detemine the strawberry quality index?
5、In the drying process，what is the slice thickness of the strawberries？
6、In 3.2, the desirability function was used in this study to determine the optimum conditions. The principle of the method should be explained in detail.
7、All the figures are not clear，especially figure 2-6.
Author Response
Dear Reviwer,
First of all, I would like to thank you and for your kind suggestions. Your comments were carefully considered, and the manuscript was revised accordingly. Now we are resubmitting our revised manuscript to article submission system. Please see the attachment.
Best Regards,
Dr. Muhammed Mustafa ÖZÇELİK
Email: d1740119004@ogr.sdu.edu.tr
Suleyman Demirel University
Isparta, Turkey
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript has been revised accordig to the reviewer comments.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your insightful comments and recommendations. We really appreciate your contributions to our post. You stated that you did not sign in your report, but if there is a point you would like us to correct, could you please contact us again? Thank you very much.
Kind regards.
Dr. Muhammed Mustafa OZCELIK
Reviewer 3 Report
The seventh question was not answered positively.
Author Response
Dear Reviwer,
I'd like to thank you for your thoughtful recommendations. Your suggestions have been considered, and the adjustments have been applied. We are now resubmitting our revised article to the article submission system. Please check the attached file.
Best Regards,
Dr. Muhammed Mustafa ÖZÇELİK
Email: d1740119004@ogr.sdu.edu.tr
Suleyman Demirel University
Isparta, Turkey
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
