Design, Fabrication and Testing of Batched Grain Beverages Processing Machine

Grain beverages are processed from legumes and cereals such as soya beans, maize, rice, sorghum, millet among others [1,2]. They are rich sources of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, oils, and protein. Grains beverages include soya milk, grain milk, ogi and kunu products among others. These beverages are among the most widely consumed food products in many developing countries and play very important role especially in the socio-economic and health promoting aspect of the people. It is in recognition of this fact that the federal and various state governments are encouraging the establishment of cottage industries to process these products by utilizing local raw materials to supplement the production capacity of the giant industries. The development of appropriate technology in the country for processing grains beverage in the agricultural sector cannot be over looked. According to Gbabo et al. [1] the basic methods of grain beverage production are traditional and the modern methods. The traditional method was reported by Gana et al. [3] to be tedious, time taking and predispose the product to contamination. On the other hand Fayose [4] reported that the industrial method involved the use of equipments which are sophisticated to operate and maintain by small and medium scale processors. Generally, the processing unit operations involved in grains beverage production are almost similar despite the method employed. It comprised of the following major unit operations: cleaning, steeping, wet milling, wet sieving, mixing and cooking. Among these processing operation, wet milling, mixing and wet sieving greatly affect the quality of the final product produced. A lot of research work has been conducted on design of equipments for size reduction of grains, and on design of mechanical sieving equipments. However, very few work were conducted on development of machine that integrate these operations together and finished in one go [3]. It was reported by Shakiru et al. [5] that available equipments used for wet milling of grains include burr mill, plate mill, disc mill and hammer mill. These equipments are generally made from mild steel materials which can easily become rusted and cause contamination of food material, thereby reducing the quality of the product. According to Fellows [6]; Earle [7] these equipments are difficult to disassemble for sanitation and cleaning operation. Foyose [4] reported that the production steps of grains beverage are carried out in separate stages using different equipment, which makes the process tedious, Volume 6 Issue 1 2018