Rice bran and soybean residue are high in nutrients and active ingredients. They are used as media in the solid-state fermentation of Wolfiporia cocos. They not only reduce raw material costs, but also raise the economic value and applications of soybean residues and rice bran. After 30 days of fermentation, the moisture content (w.b.) of the W. cocos product was approximately 40%, requiring it to be pasteurized and dried later. The objective of this research is to use radio frequency (RF) rapid heating technology to pasteurize and dry the solid-state fermented product. A 500 g bag of solid-state fermented W. cocos product took only 30 and 200 s at the RF electrode gap of 15 cm to pasteurize and reduce the moisture content (w.b.) below 15%, respectively; therefore, the methods can be used instead of the traditional 60 min autoclave sterilization and 100 min hot air drying at 45 °C. After RF treatment, the fermented W. cocos product was white, indicating that browning was prevented; the product contained 5.03% mycelium, 9.83% crude polysaccharide, 4.43% crude triterpene, 3.54 mg gallic acid equivalent/g dry weight (DW) of total polyphenols, and 0.38 mg quercetin equivalent/g DW of flavonoid contents and showed a good antioxidant capacity.
Keywords: Wolfiporia cocos; drying; pasteurization; radio frequency (RF); solid-state fermentation.