19-08-2014, 11:26 AM
Extrusion cooking is used to produce a wide variety of food products with unique sensory attributes.
Extrusion cooking is used to produce a wide variety of food products with unique sensory attributes.
It has been used in the cereal grain industry for decades to manufacture break-fast cereals and snack foods due to its versatility and economic benefits. The most common cereals used in the extrusion of snacks and breakfast cereals are corn, wheat, rice and oats. Other cereals such as barley, rye, sorghum and triticale and some popular legumes such as black gram, green gram, cow pea, chick pea could also be used but so far have not been studied and used extensively for extrusion cooking.
The suitability of sorghum for extrusion processing has not been thoroughly studies and documented.
Grain sorghum is an important food cereal in many parts of Africa, Asia and the semi-arid tropics worldwide. Also it is inexpensive and utritionally comparable or sometimes superior to major cereals.
Hence, the present work was undertaken to study the suitability of sorghum for extrusion processing.
In the present work attempts were made to optimize the extrusion process for sorghum with regard to process variables like feed moisture, barrel temperature, screw speed and feed rate using Response Surface Methodology and the effect of different levels of these parameters on the properties of extrudates was studies.
Also the effect of addition of a high protein legume (chick pea) to the sorghum flour at various levels was studies with respect to the properties of extrudates.
Further, hydrocolloids such as carboxymethylceulose (CMC) and sodium alginate were added to improve the textural properties of the extrudates.