Influence of moisture content and cooking on screw pressing of crambe seed

Abstract

AbstractThe cooking and drying conditions for oilseeds preparatory to screw pressing are some of the most important factors that influence screw‐press performance. Screw‐press oil recovery, residual oil, pressing rate, and oil sediment content were measured for uncooked crambe seed and crambe seed cooked at 100°C for 10 min, pressed at six moisture contents ranging from 9.2 to 3.6% dry basis. Oil recovery significantly increased (P≤0.01) from 69 to 80.9% and 67.7 to 78.9% for cooked and uncooked seeds, respectively, as moisture content decreased. Residual oil significantly decreased (P≤0.01) from 16.3 to 11.1% and 16.9 to 11.9%, respectively, as moisture content decreased. The reduced oil loss due to only drying the seed from 9.2 to 3.6% was 32% for cooked seed, whereas cooking contributed only 3.6 to 7% reduced oil loss. Pressing rate decreased from 5.81 to 5.17 kg/h and 6.09 to 5.19 kg/h for cooked and uncooked seeds, respectively, whereas sediment content increased from 0.9 to 7.8% and 1.1 to 5.4%, respectively, as moisture content decreased. The effects of moisture content on pressing rate and sediment content were significant at P≤0.05. All relationships of screw‐press performance to moisture content were fitted to a second‐order polynomial.