Excessive bitterness in citrus juices has been extensively studied in the past due to a reduction in juice quality. In the late 1970’s, Australia began to commercially debitter citrus juices using cellulose acetate beads. However, due to operational problems, this plant was shutdown. Continued research has led to the first commercial debittering installation in the United States. Using a proprietary styrene/divinylbenzene hydrophylic adsorbent, a citrus debittering system was started in 1988 to debitter navel orange juice. The automatic citrus debittering system was designed for continuous operation at an operator’s selectable flow rate from between 20 to 55 gallons per minute. The determination of the economics, compositional analysis and taste of the treated products was the focus of this study.
Paper published with permission.
