Innovation of Cooking Juice in Process Production of Red-Cane Sugar in Lawang Village of Agam District

Abstract

Cane refining activities which produce red-cane sugar has traditionally been the primary source of income in Lawang villagers of Agam district since hundred years ago. Three main weaknesses found in the process traditionally conducted are lower evaporation rate caused in longer time production and need more fuel, lower product quality caused in lower price, and flue gas pollution. Heat transfer mechanisms involved as long as evaporation takes place in traditional cooking process of juice, namely conduction, convection, and radiation, are not well evaluated yet. Meanwhile, falling film evaporation is not found and gummy cakes formed and accumulated in the surface of basket made of woven bamboo placed in the juice pot. The influence of evaporator like device made of a series of diameters of aluminium circular plates to evaporation process has been studied in traditional cane refining in Lawang village. The device was introduced to the juice pot which significantly faster evaporation process, namely reached about 45% faster then what usually run by villagers. The influences of introduction of lids of aluminium plates as well as any variation in circular plates to faster evaporation process had also been studied. It showed that the numbers of circular plates in a series and introduction of lid of aluminium plate contributed dominantly to faster evaporation process till about 56.67% faster, while the incline of circular plates in a range of 0 to 20 degree and the existence of some holes in the inner plates for circulation of juice cooking are not significantly shorten the time needed for evaporation process. It was also found in this study that falling film evaporation occurred in the evaporator like device introduced that contributed to faster evaporation process. The special channel added at the outsider of circular plate could play a role to accumulate gummy cakes formed.