Traditional smoking of fish in Nigeria is often carried out in open and unsanitary environment. In addition, the current process does not result in uniformly smoked fish and uses wood （an increasingly scarce material...Traditional smoking of fish in Nigeria is often carried out in open and unsanitary environment. In addition, the current process does not result in uniformly smoked fish and uses wood （an increasingly scarce material） as heat source. The fish smoking kiln designed and fabricated in this study addresses these problems. The kiln （700 × 800 × 1,500 mm） is made of stainless steel on the inside and mild steel on the outside with glass fiber insulation separating the inside and outside covers. The sample to be smoked is totally enclosed by the kiln with a latchable door provided at one of the sides for placing of samples to be smoked. In addition, the kiln was designed to use waste biomass resource as fuels （sawdust and/or maizecob）. Bonga fish （Ethmalosafimbriata） and African catfish （Clarias gariepinus） were used as test samples for the kiln. The temperature of the chamber increased to about 120 ℃ to 160 ℃ when fueled with sawdust and about 150 ℃ to 200 ℃ for maizecob. The total heat transfer resistance through the kiln walls was determined to be 1.0 ℃/W. About 6-8 h was required to smoke-dry 16 kg of fish samples from initial moisture content of 75% to about 25% or 20% moisture level.展开更多
Dehydrated sorghum flour （＂ogi＂） is useful as additional ingredient in certain food and pharmaceutical formulation, this could be obtained by soaking sorghum in water for 3 to 4 days, wet milling the soaked materi...Dehydrated sorghum flour （＂ogi＂） is useful as additional ingredient in certain food and pharmaceutical formulation, this could be obtained by soaking sorghum in water for 3 to 4 days, wet milling the soaked material, and fermentation for another 3 to 4 days. Typically, the fermented product is boiled into a pap or cooked into a stiff porridge. However, the fermented product can not be easily handled or stored and does not have a long shelf life （typically less than a week）. Dehydrating the fermented product into flour is one of the ways that is being employed to overcome these problems. Equilibrium moisture content （EMC） of dehydrated sorghum flour （aka ＂ogi＂） was therefore determined at two temperatures of 25℃ and 40℃ and four salt solutions. Zinc chloride （ZnCl2）, potassium acetate （KC2H3O2）, calcium chloride （CaCl2） and sodium chloride （NaCl） salts were prepared to correspond to equilibrium relative humidities of 10.0% to 75.4%. The moisture sorption characteristics of the sorghum product showed the characteristics S-shaped sorption isotherm curve that is typically obtained for agricultural products. The equilibrium data and the monomolccular layer moisture content values were estimated using the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller （BET） equation. The moisture content range for optimum storage of the dehydrated sorghum flour lies between 2.84% to 3.69% at 25℃ and 6.84% and 7.67% at 40℃. The information obtained from this study will help in the design and selection of storage and packaging systems for dehydrated sorghum flour.展开更多
文摘Traditional smoking of fish in Nigeria is often carried out in open and unsanitary environment. In addition, the current process does not result in uniformly smoked fish and uses wood （an increasingly scarce material） as heat source. The fish smoking kiln designed and fabricated in this study addresses these problems. The kiln （700 × 800 × 1,500 mm） is made of stainless steel on the inside and mild steel on the outside with glass fiber insulation separating the inside and outside covers. The sample to be smoked is totally enclosed by the kiln with a latchable door provided at one of the sides for placing of samples to be smoked. In addition, the kiln was designed to use waste biomass resource as fuels （sawdust and/or maizecob）. Bonga fish （Ethmalosafimbriata） and African catfish （Clarias gariepinus） were used as test samples for the kiln. The temperature of the chamber increased to about 120 ℃ to 160 ℃ when fueled with sawdust and about 150 ℃ to 200 ℃ for maizecob. The total heat transfer resistance through the kiln walls was determined to be 1.0 ℃/W. About 6-8 h was required to smoke-dry 16 kg of fish samples from initial moisture content of 75% to about 25% or 20% moisture level.
文摘Dehydrated sorghum flour （＂ogi＂） is useful as additional ingredient in certain food and pharmaceutical formulation, this could be obtained by soaking sorghum in water for 3 to 4 days, wet milling the soaked material, and fermentation for another 3 to 4 days. Typically, the fermented product is boiled into a pap or cooked into a stiff porridge. However, the fermented product can not be easily handled or stored and does not have a long shelf life （typically less than a week）. Dehydrating the fermented product into flour is one of the ways that is being employed to overcome these problems. Equilibrium moisture content （EMC） of dehydrated sorghum flour （aka ＂ogi＂） was therefore determined at two temperatures of 25℃ and 40℃ and four salt solutions. Zinc chloride （ZnCl2）, potassium acetate （KC2H3O2）, calcium chloride （CaCl2） and sodium chloride （NaCl） salts were prepared to correspond to equilibrium relative humidities of 10.0% to 75.4%. The moisture sorption characteristics of the sorghum product showed the characteristics S-shaped sorption isotherm curve that is typically obtained for agricultural products. The equilibrium data and the monomolccular layer moisture content values were estimated using the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller （BET） equation. The moisture content range for optimum storage of the dehydrated sorghum flour lies between 2.84% to 3.69% at 25℃ and 6.84% and 7.67% at 40℃. The information obtained from this study will help in the design and selection of storage and packaging systems for dehydrated sorghum flour.
