Another document available for free from The ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) through Anancy.

This uninspiring cover hides the value of the information and misleads on it breadth – it covers processing and business issues in 16 pages of concise and clear information.

The information covers post harvest handling, quality, hygiene, drying, heat treatment, concentration, pulping and pasting. It includes a very interesting process for the large scale production of paste using muslin bag filtration.

Here is your opportunity to tell me what you would like me to be publishing here! Please email me here – dave@digivu.co.za or simply make a comment at the end of the post. Everyone who makes an input can supply me with information, which will be posted on www.digivu.co.za – what about using this as an advert?

You will have noticed I’ve been posting a bit more of non food processing bits and a bit slower in the last while – but remember you can access the information in many ways.

1) Remember though you can look at particular types of posts by going down to the bottom left and clicking a category, or even by entering an expanded URL.

eg food processing – http://www.digivu.co.za/category/food-processing/
African Businesses – http://www.digivu.co.za/category/african-foodbiz/
waste – http://www.digivu.co.za/category/waste/
biofuels – http://www.digivu.co.za/category/biofuels/

2) You can search the site/blog from the the “Search Just The Blog” google search box.

3) Scan bookmarks I make to interesting articles under “STORIES NOT POSTED” to the left or in more detail from News buttons in the top menu.

4) You can email for free assistance – see “Free Q&A Service” in the top menu.

5) You can also watch other of my channels like Facebook & twitter although I need more feedback on whether these are at all useful.

I, as a chemical engineer, am really excited to find a book like this on line and easily usable.

The book is on SCRIBD which has been called the youtube of documents. Although posters on SCRIBD can make their posts downloadable this one does not, so you can only stream it.

The clip below tries, but fails, to show the blend between quantitativeness and practicality.

Rather, if you are interested in Food Processing and brining comprehensive calculation into it go and see the book.

The Chapters are titled.

• Problem Solving Tools: Dimensions and Units, Algebraic Equations, Graphs and Coordinate Systems

• Mass and Energy Balances: Conservation of Mass, Conservation of Energy
• Physical Properties of Food and Biological Materials
• Textural Properties of Food and Biological Materials
• Fluid Flow: Fluid Characteristics, Fluid Statics, Fluid Energy Balance (Bernoulli Equation), Fluid Friction Loss, Pumps and Fans, Non-newtonian Fluids
• Heat Transfer: Conduction, Convection, Radiation, Heat Exchangers, Thermal Properties
• Thermal Processing
• Psychrometrics
• Drying and Dehydration: Equilibrium Moisture Concepts, Drying Theory and Models, Drying Applications
• Refrigeration: Equipment sizing, Refrigeration load, cooling time
• Biological Product Preservation: Deteriorative Mechanisms, Storage Fundamentals, Thermal Sterilization and Preservation

I am not sure how this book is able to appear online, but since its there why not have a look! Either click the clip above to open in your browser or click below to stream here.

food_process_engineering_book

I believe now is an appropriate time to focus on drying and solar energy. Drying is the simplest and one of the most effective methods of preserving food, allowing it to be stored without cost and equipment. The energy of the sun is free to anyone able to use it effectively. In the current situation where energy and food are both expensive and likely to continue increasing for some years the sun and solar drying of food is a very useful technology.

Although we will cover some of the basics over the next while, I want, in this post, to illustrate how simple it is to dry. I use a document distributed by Echonet to illustrate what can be done with little effort and little cost.

This pdf document is an extremely useful and practical manual for the solar drying of foods. It presents a simple drawing and describes a method of construction based on specified materials. As is obvious from the photograph below, this is not a flash and expensive piece of equipment from industry, but rather a device anyone with a little mechanical aptitude could construct and even redesign to make use of other materials which might be locally available.

As well as information on how to build the dryer the manual contains detailed information, originally from the University of Georgia, on drying and how to dry. The information covers the basics including hygiene, pretreatment, determining dryness and conditioning but also provides fruit by fruit and vegetable by vegetable information on preparation, drying conditions, storage and even how to reconstitute.

I am continuing to try and get permission to email the documents I discuss to those requesting copies and having difficulty with connectivity – however, for now it is probably best to make contact through the website and request that the document is emailed.

There is one other option, which is to use the web by email system that I will describe in a future post.

The video is shows the juice pressing process used by Woods Cider Mill in the apple cider process.

What I find interesting and worthy of thought are:

• the potential to use the liquid extraction process on other separations – eg cashew apples, spent grain from brewing, cassava pressing in washing process

• the simplicity of the technology and it robustness (no close tolerance, no electrical needs if apples are crushed by hand –
• the minimal technology support needs

• the type of process and equipment than can be used, in a safe and hygenic operation, so long as the necessary processes are in place
• the possibilities of carrying out the process on a reasonably large scale
  
  
  from: mcnaudio on utube
  (click image for utube homepage)