Abstract:To explore the effects of continuous sterilization at low temperature on the quality of canned citrus, Satsuma mandarin was chose as raw material, sterilized canned citrus through the continuous water bath sterilization machine, recorded the time required to achieve commercial sterility at different sterilization temperatures, and measured the changes of canned citrus flesh color, texture and vitamin C, total sugar, soluble solids, flavonoids and other nutrients under different sterilization conditions. The results showed that: 1) The time required for canned citrus to be commercially sterile decreased with the increase of temperature. 2) The color of citrus flesh changed significantly under different sterilization conditions, the sterilization condition of the best color was 80 ℃, and the L*, a* and b* values were 43.02, 9.62 and 18.88, respectively. At the same time, the browning degree of citrus flesh deepened under the sterilization condition of 100 ℃, and the hardness, adhesion, chewability, elasticity and fracture of citrus flesh were also decreased by high temperature. 3) In the process of sterilization, with the increase of temperature, the content of vitamin C, total sugar, hesperidin, naringin and didymin in citrus flesh all decreased significantly, compared with the unsterilized group, the maximum reduction was 18.10%, 17.66%, 22.49%, 16.68% and 27.21%, respectively. Therefore, the low temperature (80 ℃) sterilization was more conducive to maintaining the color, texture and nutritional quality of canned citrus.