by
Vaughn Entwistle, Features Editor, Milling and Grain, UK
As the old saying goes, time is money, and the same is true in the cereal milling industry.
For example, a typical flour milling process requires an ordered sequence of steps the wheat must be put through to separate, mill, sift, purify and finally pack the product in flour bags. Each step takes a certain amount of time, and it’s difficult to find shortcuts to speed things up. But a German company has pioneered a technology that saves vital time while producing a better-quality product.
The cleaning house
One of the first steps in the wheat milling process is cleaning the cereal. This is accomplished in stages by what is called the “cleaning house”. This is not an actual house per se, but rather a number of specialised machines, each one designed to condition the cereal prior to milling.
The first step is to separate the cereal from seeds, foreign materials, and various harvest detritus such as sticks, stones, metal and straw, and then scour the kernels of wheat clean. As many as six machines are typically involved: magnetic separator, separator, aspirator, de-stoner, disc separator, scourer, and impact entoleter. These machines work at very high speeds and the cleaning is usually accomplished in a short amount of time.
Tempering
The next step involves conditioning the wheat so that it is ready to be milled. The process is called Tempering and involves adding moisture in precise quantities to make the outer layer of the wheat kernels (known as the bran) more flexible. The grain is soaked in water to make the parts of the kernel separate cleanly and easily.
Grain may be left in tempering bins for varying amounts of time depending upon its moisture level and type, but the soaking time will typically be 24 hours or more before the water gets into the outer bran layer (see Figure 1). The challenge is to evenly distribute the tempering water over the entire kernel surface. Compared to the rest of the milling cycle—which is usually carried out at great speed by precise machines—the need to temper cereal slows the whole process down to a dawdle.
But the time eaten up by tempering causes bigger problems than just slowing down production. The heat in the silo, when combined with water and dirt and mould on the grain, leads to the growth of mycotoxins, and so the longer the grain spends in the silo bin the more the bacteria will grow.
Clearly, what is needed is a way of speeding up the tempering process while more effectively wetting the surface of a kernel so that water penetrates evenly.
Read the full article, HERE.
As the old saying goes, time is money, and the same is true in the cereal milling industry.
For example, a typical flour milling process requires an ordered sequence of steps the wheat must be put through to separate, mill, sift, purify and finally pack the product in flour bags. Each step takes a certain amount of time, and it’s difficult to find shortcuts to speed things up. But a German company has pioneered a technology that saves vital time while producing a better-quality product.
The cleaning house
One of the first steps in the wheat milling process is cleaning the cereal. This is accomplished in stages by what is called the “cleaning house”. This is not an actual house per se, but rather a number of specialised machines, each one designed to condition the cereal prior to milling.
The first step is to separate the cereal from seeds, foreign materials, and various harvest detritus such as sticks, stones, metal and straw, and then scour the kernels of wheat clean. As many as six machines are typically involved: magnetic separator, separator, aspirator, de-stoner, disc separator, scourer, and impact entoleter. These machines work at very high speeds and the cleaning is usually accomplished in a short amount of time.
Tempering
The next step involves conditioning the wheat so that it is ready to be milled. The process is called Tempering and involves adding moisture in precise quantities to make the outer layer of the wheat kernels (known as the bran) more flexible. The grain is soaked in water to make the parts of the kernel separate cleanly and easily.
Grain may be left in tempering bins for varying amounts of time depending upon its moisture level and type, but the soaking time will typically be 24 hours or more before the water gets into the outer bran layer (see Figure 1). The challenge is to evenly distribute the tempering water over the entire kernel surface. Compared to the rest of the milling cycle—which is usually carried out at great speed by precise machines—the need to temper cereal slows the whole process down to a dawdle.
But the time eaten up by tempering causes bigger problems than just slowing down production. The heat in the silo, when combined with water and dirt and mould on the grain, leads to the growth of mycotoxins, and so the longer the grain spends in the silo bin the more the bacteria will grow.
Clearly, what is needed is a way of speeding up the tempering process while more effectively wetting the surface of a kernel so that water penetrates evenly.
Read the full article, HERE.
The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine Milling and Grain
which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.
For additional daily news from milling around the world: global-milling.com
No comments:
Post a Comment