Evaluation of Crispy Grain Quality of Different Varieties of Blueberries Based on Principal Component Analysis

In order to select the varieties suitable for processing blueberry crispy, the quality evaluation of freeze-dried blueberry crispy was carried out. In this study, eight Highbush blueberries and Rabbiteye blueberries varieties in Jiangsu Province were used as raw materials, and were prepared as blueberry crispy by vacuum freeze-drying, and 18 quality indexes such as water content, total sugar, scavenging ability of DPPH free radical, hardness, etc, were determined, and the quality of the blueberry crispy was comprehensively evaluated by principal component analysis. The results showed that the coefficients of variation of sugar-acid ratio and total acid of different varieties of blueberry crispy were larger, with the value of 57.89% and 40.25%, respectively. Principal component analysis showed that the glucose content, anthocyanoside content, total flavonoid content, total antioxidant activity of AEAC, moisture content of dry samples, output rate and hardness were determined as representative indexes for the evaluation of the quality of blueberry brittle grains. Then, the comprehensive quality evaluation model was established. Based on the comprehensive quality score of each variety, the top three blueberry varieties were Legacy, Brightwell and Climax, and the others varieties had negative scores. This indicated that these three kinds of blueberries were more suitable for dry processing as blueberry crispy, among which the Legacy variety was the better. The results of the study provide a basis for the screening and quality analysis of blueberry varieties for dry processing.