Sour orange juice has found application in various foods as alternative of lime juice, due to its desirable taste. Different thermal processes could be performed to improve safety and shelf life of this product. In this study, the sour orange juice was processed at four microwave power levels (170, 340, 510 & 680 W) in a various periods of time to reach the product temperature to 72^˚C. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of heating processes on the some physicochemical properties of sour orange juice during come up time. Based on the results, different power levels of microwave have no significant effects on viscosity. The thermal destruction of Ascorbic acid and Pectin methyl esterase were found to follow first order kinetics. Destruction rate of these two compounds were also increased by increasing microwave power. Because of the effect of microwave power on chemicals especially ascorbic acid, the colorimetric parameters of the product changed as a result of changing in microwave power. By considering the high regression (R²> 0.97) between two measuring methods (spectroscopy and image processing), the image processing method is suggested as browning index during thermal processing.

Keywords: Sour Orange Juice, Microwave, ascorbic acid, Pectin Methyl esterase, Color

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