PENGARUH KONSENTRASI KITOSAN HASIL EKSTRAKSI DARI CANGKANG RAJUNGAN (Portunus pelagicus) DAN LAMA PENYIMPANAN TERHADAP KUALITAS BAKSO

Meatballs are a type of food that is much favored by the community. The high water content causes the meatballs to have a short shelf life. Many meatball manufacturers use harmful additives to get good meatball results by using borax. Borax has a negative effect on health, therefore chitosan can be used as an alternative natural preservative. The crab has a shell that contains chitosan. The crab shell waste is a solution in tackling the problem of environmental pollution and to reduce the increasing volume of waste. The advantages and safety level of chitosan is better than borax. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of adding chitosan and storage time on meatballs. The design carried out in this study was a two-factor factorial randomized block design (RAK). The first factor is chitosan with chitosan concentration treatment of 1%, 1.5% and 2%, while the second factor is the storage time of meatballs for 1 day, 2 days, and 3 days, in order to obtain 9 combinations with 3 replications. The data obtained were analyzed for variance with a level of 5% and continued with Duncan's test. Based on the results of the study, the addition of chitosan concentration had a very significant effect on the protein content and texture of meatballs. Meanwhile, the addition of chitosan concentration did not affect the water, ash, fat and TPC content of meatballs. Storage time has a very significant effect on texture and significantly affects water content and TPC. Meanwhile, storage time had no effect on ash, fat and protein content. The best treatment in this study was K1H2 (chitosan 1%: day 2) with water content of 65.30%, ash content of 1,45%, fat content of 2,67%, protein content of 6,51%, TPC 9,76 CFu/ml, and texture 9,73N