General procedures that may be used to improve, maintain or change the
quality of a product are:
1. Control storage conditions which are:
- Temperature, RH and Time
2. Kill or inhibit destructive organisms by:
- Fumigation, Refrigeration, Heating
3. Improve the physical characteristics by:
- Changing or maintain the moisture content
- Removal of foreign or dissimilar material
- Sorting into various fractions.
CLEANING
• Refers to the removal of foreign or dissimilar material.
• May be done by washing, screening, hand picking
Dockage
- refers to the impurities present in the paddy which can be separated through
sieves and other cleaning devices
- It may also include underdeveloped and shriveled kernels that are hard to
remove even with recleaning and/or rescreening
Dockage is determined to:
1. Protect processing equipment
2. Separate the unripe and underdeveloped grains;
3. Be able to adjust the hullers more precisely for minimum grain breakage in
milling; and
4. Be able to mill grain lots separately
Cleaning and Sorting Grains, Nuts and Seeds
Based on the following characteristics of the material:
1. Size
2. Shape
3. Specific gravity
4. Surface characteristics
Methods of Cleaning and Sorting Grains, Nuts and Seeds
1. Winnowing
- a traditional/common practice of cleaning grains
- The grains are placed in a container and slow winnowing leads to
separation of dirt and husk from the grain.
- Almost all types of dry grain like wheat, maize, paddy, pulses etc. can be
cleaned in this manner
2. Screening
- the most widely used sorting device
- used in conjunction with an air blast will satisfactorily clean and sort most
granular products
- performance is based mainly upon careful selection of the screens
Washing of Fruits, Vegetables and Nuts
- washing is done to remove dirt, spray residues, and other foreign material.
- may be continuous or batch type
- The batch type is recommended only for small plants or institutional or
community installations where use is intermittent and operating costs are not
critical.
Washing is performed by one or a combination of the following:
1. Soaking in still or moving water or other fluids
2. Water sprays
3. Rotary drum
4. Rotating brushes
5. Shuffle or shaker washer
Nylon brushes are preferred for foaming, polyethylene brushes are preferred for
rinsing and latex sponges are preferred for drying.
Classification Operations
1. Grading
2. Sorting
GRADING
● Implies the classification of the material on the basis of commercial value
and usage.
● The separation of the products to their quality
● Is done mostly by hand (e.g. inspection or fruits after washing) or through
machinery.
● In rice, the white kernels are separated from the spoiled or from foreign
matter, optically and the unripe tomatoes can be separated from the ripe
according to their density
SORTING
● Offers to the separation of the cleaned product into various quality
fractions that may be defined on the basis of size, shape, density, texture
and color.
● It facilitates subsequent processing operations, such as blanching, slicing
and filling of containers.
● It is desirable in heat and mass transfer operations, where processing time
is a function of the size of the product (e.g. conduction, mass diffusion)
● Specific equipment is used for each product or product group.
Sorting Fruits and Vegetables
- Fruits and vegetables are sorted on the basis of color, damage, and size.
- Mat sorting on the basis of color and damage is done manually
- Most fruits and vegetables are subject to damage if handled too vigorously.
● Related to quality classification ( small sizes or okra is considered more
tender and desirable than larger ones
● The size and shape of fruits and vegetables should be suitable for
mechanical harvesting, handling and processing
Sorting may be done using:
1. Screens (flat or drum type)
- Are used widely in sorting various grains, seeds, crystals, and other food
pieces/particles of relatively small size.
- Inclined screens, one on top of the other with horizontal and vertical oscillations
are effective in grain and seed sorting.
2. Diverging Belts and Roller Sorters
- used to separate the fruits into various sizes by allowing them to pass through
an increasing slot (opening) sizes.
3. Cylindrical and disc separators
- Are used to separate nearly round grains (wheat) from long grains or particles.
4. Weight sorters
- are used for valuable food, such as eggs, cut meats, and sensitive fruits, where
accuracy in size separation and caution in handling are needed.
5. Color Sorter
- are widely used in the food processing industry. The operation of color sorter is
based on the reflection of incident light on food piece/particle which is measured
by a photo detector.
- The reflected light is compared with preset color standards and the rejected
particle is removed from the product mixture by a short blast of compressed air.
Image processing can be used as a color sorting system.
The food pieces/particles are fed on a roller conveyor beneath a video camera.
The composite image of each food piece is constructed by the computer, which
is compared to preset color specifications and the rejected particle is removed by
an automatic mechanism.
GRADING
● Implies the classification of the material on the basis of commercial value
and usage.
● The separation of the products to their quality
● Is done mostly by hand (e.g. inspection or fruits after washing) or through
machinery.
● In rice, the white kernels are separated from the spoiled or from foreign
matter, optically and the unripe tomatoes can be separated from the ripe
according to their density
Effectiveness of hand grading depends on the following:
● Quality of the product
● Quantity per inspector and minute
● Experience and physical condition of the inspector
● Kind of inspection
● The speed at which products move in front of the inspector
• Products should be properly illuminated and they should move relatively slowly
in front of the inspectors.
• The products must not exceed a distance of more than 80 cm from the worker
and the speed they are moving in front of the workers inspecting them is product
specific (e.g. 15m/min for berries and 45 m/ min for apples)
• Grading of larger quantities of food or products, such as grains, is based on
testing of smaller quantities
• The samples are taken out randomly and they are subsequently evaluated in
the laboratory.
• Modern physical methods are recently used for continuous grading, such as
color measurements, use of x-rays, lasers and infrared (IR) rays and
microwaves. Most of the machines used in grading can be also used in sorting of
food.
• X-rays are also used in detecting foreign matter such as glass splits and stones
in food products.
Grade Factors
The comparative commercial value of a farm product is a function of its grade
factor.
Classification of grade factors:
a) Physical Characteristics
b) Chemical Characteristics
c) Biological Characteristics
