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Milling
Definition
The term milling applied in context if cereals, covers a wide range of processes.
These include the methods to transform whole grains to forms suitable for
consumption.
Characteristic features of a milling operation includes:
Separation of botanical tissues of the grain (e.g. endosperm from pericarp, testa
and embryo)
Reduction of endosperm into flour or grits.
Milling of rice
The main product of rice milling is dehulled, decorticated endosperm known as milled rice.
Steps of rice milling
Step 1: Dehulling
Equipment & Operation:
1) Rubber roll hullers: A pair of rolls of equal diameter turning on a horizontal axis,
towards a nip, into which the rough rice is fed.
The rolls are often termed as “stone reel”.
One of these rolls is fixed and other is movable in order to have desirable
clearance between two rolls.
The movable roll rotates at 25% slower speed then fixed.
These are mechanically driven and rotate in opposite direction.
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Due to wear and tear of rubber coatings, it has to be changed after some time.
Fixed Roll Movable Roll
2) Disc Sheller: Abrasion is done by discs with surfaces partly covered with coarse
emery or carborundum.
Two discs are mounted on a vertical axis, the upper one remains stationary while the
lower one rotates.
Rough rice is fed from a central hopper.
3) Engleberg huller is used at small scales.
It combines both hulling and milling processes.
Step2: Whitening
After dehulling, the brown rice is treated to remove bran and embryo.
Equipment & Operation
1) Abrasive Cone Type Vertical Whitener: A cone rotates on a vertical axis, its surface
is covered with abrasive material and it is surrounded by a perforated screen.
These are used in either single or multipass systems.
Vertical Cone
Grain
Vertical shaft
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2) Friction Machines: These are always used in multipass systems.
A friction whitener comprises a rotating cylinder within a chamber of hexagonal
section.
The hexagonal section has perforated walls.
The horizontal cylinder has air passages from its centre.
Rotation of the cylinder causes friction within the grain mass surrounding it and
air from the passages cools the stock and supports the discharge of bran.
Barn and germ pass through the perforations of hexagonal section.
3) Humidified Friction Whitener: The principle and set up is same as above.
But small amount of atomized water is used with pressurized air stream that
passes through the central cylinder.
This facilitates removal of barn and reduces the breakage of endosperm.
Step 3: Polishing
The rice emerging after whitening stage has its outer barn layer removed but inner
layer remains.
These remaining fragments are removed by polishing or refining.
Polishing extends the storage life of the product as the aleurone layer is removed.
This reduces the oxidative rancidity.
Equipment and Operation:
Polishers: The construction is same as that of whitening cones but instead of abrasive
coverings, the cone is covered with many leather strips.
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1) The terms polishing and whitening are sometimes interchangeably used.
2) The Japanese call the whitening machine as polisher and polishing machine as
refiner.
3) In India whitening and polishing are synonymous.
4) The objective of these two processes is to remove loose bran present on the white
milled rice.
Step 4: Grading of milled rice
1) Milled rice produced by so many commercial mills are a mixture of entire and
broken endosperms of various sizes.
2) Rice are sieved through 1.4 mm round perforations.
3) The rice passing through the sieve are termed as brewers’ rice and those retained
on sieve are head rice.
4) Other categories like large broken and small broken are separated by trieurs and
disc separators.
Variations in milling process
1) Parboiling treatment:
Decrease in Vitamin B and minerals occur during polishing stage.
To minimize this loss rice are subjected to parboiling treatment prior to milling.
Conventional method: The method involves steeping the rough rice in hot water for several
hours, draining off the excess water, drying and then shelling and milling.
The water which permeates the bran causes water soluble constituents to diffuse to the
endosperm.
Modern Method: Rough rice are subjected to steaming under pressure and then drying.
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Yields (as percentages of paddy):
Husk-20-30%
Miled Rice-63-72%
Bran-7-8%
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Milling of Wheat
Composition of Wheat
Before milling: Periarp, Testa and Aleurone constitute Bran (15%)
Endosperm (82%)
Germ (3%)
After milling: Bran (5%)
Endosperm (82%)
Germ (13%)
Objectives of Wheat milling are:
1) To increase palatability
2) Remove fat (in the form of bran) to increase storage stability.
Roller Milling Process
1) Pretreatment:
a) Wheat Selection and Blending: The chemical composition and quality of individual lots
of wheat vary according to environmental conditions in which they are grown. These
lots are sorted according to their quality characteristics before milling.
b) Cleaning: Removal of impurities is done before milling by aspiration, magnetic
separation and screening etc.
c) Conditioning (Tempering): It involves adjustment of moisture content of wheat either
by drying or wetting.
Objective of conditioning is to improve physical state of grain for milling.
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When moisture content increase, bran becomes tough and less brittle so there
is less contamination of flour with extra fine bran particles.
The second objective of conditioning is to make endosperm soft and more
friable. So, power consumption less during milling.
Process:
1) Water is added to wheat and it is kept for 2-3 days for uniform distribution of
moisture.
2) Warm conditioning is done when it is not possible to keep wheat for 2-3 days.
3) Warm conditioning is done for 1 to 1.5 hours at temp at 46 C.
2) Milling
a) Breaking
1) The first break rolls are spaced some distance apart so that the wheat is only
lightly crushed and only a small quantity of fine material or flour is produced.
2) After sifting or bolting, the coarsest material is conveyed to second break roll,
which are a little closer.
3) The crushed stock is again sifted and coarse material is conveyed to break rolls.
4) The material going to each succeeding break contains less and less endosperm
and after fifth or sixth beak the fragments consist of outer covering of the
wheat.
5) This is passed through a machine called bran duster that removes small quantity
of low-grade flour.
6) Rest part is then packed as bran.
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b) Boling or Sieving
After each grinding on the break rolls, the crushed material called tock or chop is
conveyed to a sifter or bolter.
Equipment: Sifter is a large box fitted with a series of sloping sieves.
These have coarse sieve at the top and progressively finer silk sieves arranged
below.
Sifter is given a gyratory motion so that finer particles of stock pass through
sieves in moving from top to bottom.
The particles which are too coarse to pass through any particular sieve are
removed from sifter box.
c) Purification
The middlings consist of fragments of endosperm mixed with pieces of bran and
released embryo.
In purification step, the middlings are graded according to their size.
Equipment: Middling purifier consists of a large sieve which is shaken backward and
forward.
The sieve is tightly stretched and the openings become progressively coarser.
An upward current of air moving through the sieve draws off very light material
to dust collectors.
Inlet, Feed
Air, with dust (outlet)
Sieve
Air
Product Fine Coarse
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d) Reduction
The purified and classified middlings are reduced to flour by reduction rolls.
Slower Roll Faster Roll
Sieve
Flour
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Milling of Barley
Barley is milled to remove the hull and bran.
The objective of milling is not to produce flour.
1) Pretreatment
a) Cleaning: To remove extraneous matter and to classify barley according to kernel size.
Dry cleaning processes include sieveing, separating particles by shape and
density and removing ferromagnetic substances by permanent magnets.
Rat pellets are removed by electrostatic separators.
Wet cleaning processes include wet stoning and washing.
b) Conditioning: Water is added and moisture is allowed to equilibrate within kernels.
The objectives of conditioning are:
1) to loosen the germ and making the germ more flexible and easier to separate
from endosperm
2) to loosen the bran and toughen it and making it easier to remove in large pieces.
Conveyers and Whizzers are principle types of equipments used in conditioning.
c) Bleaching: Bleaching is not permitted in Britain but is practiced in Germany.
The barley that has aleurone with bluish color requires bleaching.
2) Milling Process
a) Blocking or Pearling
1) Both blocking (Shelling) and Pearling (Rounding) of barley are abrasive processes
differing in degree of removal of superficial layers of the grain.
2) Blocking removes husk and is accomplished with minimum injury to grain.
3) Pearling is done in two steps.
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4) After removal of husk (blocking), it also removes any remaining husk and
endosperm.
5) The first pearling removes most of the hull, second removes more bran and ends
of kernel, third removes complete bran and aleurone layer.
6) After blocking or pearling (3-4 repeated cycles of blocking/pearling), the barley
is aspirated to remove the bran.
7) The product now obtained is pot barley.
Equipment and operation:
1) Batch machine: It consists of a large cylindrical stone, rotating on horizontal axis
within a perforated metal cage.
The cylindrical stone moves clockwise at 450 rpm and metal cage moves anti-clockwise
at 30 rpm.
Grain inlet
Millstone Perforated Cage
2) Continuous-working machine: It consists of two stones of abrasive material.
The rotor is circular and moves over a stator (not moving).
The distance between rotor and stator is adjustable. (Similar to chakki)
Continuous feed
Rotor
Stator
Blocked Barley
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The barley falls between rotor and stator and the husk is split or rubbed
off.
The degree of treatment resulting in either blocking or pearling is governed
by abrasiveness of stone and residence period in the machine.
b) Aspiration: it is done to remove the abraded portions of the grain.
c) Cutting: Blocked barley is cut to small grits.
Granulator is used to cut the blocked barley into three parts per piece.
If the knives are sharp, 1-2% fines are produced but if it is dull the percentage of
fine may reach up to 10%.
Other Variations in barley
1) Barley flakes: Pearl barley is converted to flakes by steaming and flaking on large
diameter rolls.
2) Barley flour: Barley flour is milled from blocked, pearl or hull-less barley.
Equipment used is reduction rollers.
3) Malted barley flour: It is milled from malted barley.
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Milling of corn
There are two distinct types of corn milling operations.
In the oldest, dry milling, the field corn of commerce is reduced in size and
separated into components to make different kinds of meal.
In wet milling of corn, a more complete separation of the kernels components is
achieved, with starch and oil as derivatives of major economic importance.
Dry milling of corn
Traditional method
Corn is ground on buhr mills.
As the corn ground on buhr mills contains all germ, rancidity was a big problem.
Also, the oxidation of fat progresses rapidly once the kernel is ground.
Modern method
Step 1: Cleaning
Dry cleaning processes include sieving, separating particles by shape and density
and removing ferromagnetic substances by permanent magnets.
Rat pellets are removed by electrostatic separators.
Wet cleaning processes include wet stoning and washing.
Step 2: Conditioning
Water is added and moisture is allowed to equilibrate within kernels.
The objectives of conditioning are:
a) to loosen the germ and making the germ more flexible and easier to separate from
endosperm
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b) to loosen the bran and toughen it and making it easier to remove in large pieces.
Conveyers and Whizzers are principle types of equipments used in conditioning.
Step 3: Degermination
It involves the removal of germ from endosperm.
Equipment and operation:
1) Beall degerminators
1) These are attrition mills.
2) These consist of a cast iron inner cone which rotates in a conical housing that is
perforated.
3) The rotor has knob like projections.
4) The corn is fed into the space between these cones at the smaller end.
5) As the corn moved to the larger end by gravity it experiences attrition from the
projections of conical rotor.
6) When the kernel finally reached the bottom, it is dehulled and the germ knocked
Grain Inlet
loose.
Ground grain
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2) Entoleters
1) These are impact mills.
2) These consist of a circular chamber housing a rapidly rotating disc to which affixed
are several small pins.
3) Grins fall through a central opening and land on rotating disc.
4) Centrifugal force makes the kernals to fall on pins and walls of chamber.
5) These multiple impacts, with minimum shear, dehull and degerm the kernel.
Grain inlet
Circular chamber
Metallic Pins
Rotating disc
Step 4: Drying or Cooling
The product obtained after above processing, is dried to 15-18% moisture content.
Drying is performed by conventional rotary steam tube dryers.
Cooling is done either by rotary cereal coolers or fluid bed coolers.
Step 5: Classification
After drying and cooling, the stock is classified into lots and bran and germ is removed.
Step 6: Milling operation
It consists of grinding, sifting, classifying, purifying and final drying.
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Wet Milling of Corn
Traditional Method
1) Corn is placed in flat bottomed wooden tanks covered with warm water and is
allowed to stand.
2) The corn is softened.
3) Kernels are ground in stone mills and the slurry is washed and put in wooden tubs,
treated with caustic soda and allowed to settle.
4) After settling, the effluent (containing gluten and soluble material) is drained.
5) This process is repeated 3-4 times.
Modern Method
Step 1: Cleaning
1) Corn wet millers use only shelled and No. 2 yellow dent corn.
2) It is cleaned by passing it over perforated screens.
3) Upper screen has holes just large enough to let corn and smaller particle to pass
through. Second (lower) screen retains corn but let smaller chips, sticks etc to pass
through.
4) Next cleaning step involves contact of high velocity air with corn, this removes low
density particles from the stock.
Step 2: Steeping
1) After cleaning, the stock is transferred to steep tanks, where these are soaked in
water for 36-48 h at 120- 130 F.
2) The added water contains sulphur dioxide to prevent germination.
3) In batch steeping, large amount of water was used and discarded.
4) So, these days a continuous counter current system is used.
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5) The freshest water passes over the corn that has steeped the longest, assuring
removal of maximum amount of soluble material.
Grain inlet
Steeped grain Water inlet
Step 3: Degermination
In this step, germ is separated from starch, gluten, hulls and fiber.
The softened (steeped) corn is passed over shakers and cleaned for any foreign
matter.
It is then passed over attrition mills.
Grain inlet
Circular chamber
Metallic Pins
Rotating disc
Grain inlet
Different models of attrition mills
1) The slurry from attrition mills, consisting of endosperm, germ and fiber, is diluted
with water.
2) The germ being lighter comes at top and is separated.
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3) The wet mass now contains fiber, hulls, gluten and starch.
4) This is ground in mills to a very small particle size.
5) Hulls and fibers are not reduced in size in this process.
6) The fiber and hulls are separated from starch and gluten by screening the mixture
over specialized (DSM) screens.
7) The starch and gluten slurry slowly flows and sedimentation occurs.
8) The heavier starch deposits at the bottom and gluten comes up.
9) Both starch and gluten are further purified by centrifugation processes.
Modern Process Yields
Starch 67.5
Crude Oil 3.86
Germ Cake 3.64
Solubles 7.60
Fibre 9.50
Gluten Meal 5.80
Other 2.10
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