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Destalking of dry red chillies (Capsicum annum L.) and its characterization

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Abstract

The prevalent manual destalking of dried red chillies is a labour-intensive, tedious, and unhealthy practice that can cause severe health ailments to the labourers. This study focuses on the design and fabrication of a mechanized system for removing stalks from dried chillies to reduce the drudgery involved in manual operation. The machine’s primary components including hopper, rotating cylinder, triangular bridges, cutting blades, destalked chilli outlet, and stalk outlet were fabricated based on the design considerations and ease of operation. The machine was evaluated considering the independent parameters viz. feed rate, cylinder speed, and cylinder inclination for optimization of its performance using one-factor-at-a-time statistical design. Physical properties of chillies, destalking efficiency of the machine, and the effect of destalking on powder characteristics were determined. Optimal performance of the machine was achieved with the chillies having 8–10% (moisture), 6.5 kg/h (feed rate), 20 rpm (cylinder’s speed), and 3° (cylinder’s inclination) with destalking efficiency of 85–87%. The evaluation of powder characteristics also revealed the prominence of destalking with enhanced colour attributes. The developed machine is compact, efficient, economical, requires less labour and thereby it may encourage its adoption at the farmer’s level and strengthening of the value chain of dried chillies.

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Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.

Abbreviations

L:

Length of chilli

W:

Width of chilli

T:

Thickness of chilli

ω:

Rotation speed of the cylinder

g:

Acceleration due to gravity

R:

Radius of the cylinder

rpm:

Revolutions per minute

W:

Watts

θ:

Angle of inclination

µ:

Coefficient of static friction

V:

Cylinder's volume

M:

Mass of chilli processed per day

ρ:

Bulk density of chilli

D:

Cylinder's diameter

L1 :

Cylinder's length

FR:

Feed rate

CS:

Cylinder’s speed

CI:

Cylinder’s inclination

DSC:

Destalked chilli

US:

Unstalked chilli

PSC:

Partially stalked chilli

ME:

Machine efficiency

TEC:

Total extractable colour

IS:

Indian standard

ASTA:

American Spice Trade Association units

N:

Newton

Fc:

Force to cut the stalks

MC:

Moisture content of stalks

Wc:

Work of shear

kWh:

Kilowatt hour

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

L*, a* b*:

Lightness value, redness value and yellowness value

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Dr. P.C. Sharma for his motivation and guidance while formulating the hypothesis of the work. The authors also wish to acknowledge Dr. Prerna Nath for carrying out packaging studies of dried chillies with the first author. The suggestions given by Dr. Bhushan Bibwe and Dr. Srinivas Girjal during the performance evaluation of the machine were also acknowledged. The authors sincerely acknowledge the technical support provided by Mr. Dalu Ram, Mr. Chiman Lal, Mr. Brijmohan, and Mr. Satpal, who has dedicatedly helped in the fabrication of the machine. Financial support given by ICAR-CIPHET Ludhiana to conduct this study is also duly acknowledged.

Funding

Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi.

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Author notes

  1. Kirti Jalgaonkar & Manoj Kumar Mahawar

    Present address: ICAR-Central Institute for Research on Cotton Technology, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

  2. Kirti Jalgaonkar and Manoj Kumar Mahawar have equally contributed to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ICAR-Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology, Abohar, Punjab, India

    Kirti Jalgaonkar & Manoj Kumar Mahawar

  2. ICAR-Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology, Ludhiana, Punjab, India

    Rajesh Kumar Vishwakarma

Authors
  1. Kirti Jalgaonkar
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Contributions

KJ: Conceptualization, Resources, Software, Writing-original draft, Writing-review & editing; MKM: Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Writing-review & editing; RKV: Conceptualization, Validation, Writing-original draft, Writing-review & editing, Supervision.

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Correspondence to Manoj Kumar Mahawar.

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Jalgaonkar, K., Mahawar, M.K. & Vishwakarma, R.K. Destalking of dry red chillies (Capsicum annum L.) and its characterization. J Food Sci Technol 60, 404–418 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-022-05627-6

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