Abstract:An attempt has been made to investigate the influence of high temperature and relative humanity(80 ℃, 85%) during drying on the quality properties of Chinese dried noodles (CDNs) in order to improve the drying process and product quality. Wheat variety Yongliang 4 was used to make CDNs in laboratory and relative properties were evaluated. The experiment was designed with two factors at three levels for the drying conditions with varying drying temperatures (40, 60 ℃ and 80 ℃) and relative humidity (65%, 75% and 85%). The drying time was 300 minutes. The product properties including color (CIE L*, a*, and b*), density, shrinkage ratio and texture properties (bending strength, break distance and break work) of CDNs were measured. The results showed that moisture content of noodle products significantly changed with the increase of temperature. Drying temperature affected b* value and density very significantly (P<0.01), changed shrinkage ratio, break distance and break work remarkably (P<0.05), while it had no influence on L* value, a* value and bending strength. Relative humidity altered color (L*, a* and b* value), density and texture properties of CDNs significantly. The factor interaction significantly effected b* value and bending properties. Compared to drying temperature, the relative humidity had a greater influence on the quality of the noodles during the drying process. While comparing with the normal drying method (40 ℃, 75%), it was observed that product properties of CDNs including b* value, bending strength, breaking distance and break work increased significantly at high temperature and humidity (80 ℃, 85%). However, no significant changes were found in L* value, a* value, density and shrinkage ratio in both methods. From the present results, it can be concluded that high temperature and relative humanity drying technology should be matched with the design of drying equipment, thermal energy loss, energy consumption analysis and product characteristic evaluation, so as to finally determine its application value in the actual production of noodles.