Preliminary treatments of Browntop and effect on performance indices, physical and geometrical properties of grain

Abstract

In the present study Browntop (BT) millet was subjected to three different treatments viz., mechanical stress, hydrothermal treatment and combined treatment (mechanical and hydrothermal) to enhance the dehulling efficiency and studied for its performance indices and its impact on physical, grain dimensions and therefore geometrical dimensions. Different treatments on grain before dehulling has shown significant improvement in the dehulling index up to 93%, coefficient of dehulling up to 96.88 %, and overall dehulling efficiency up to 96.73% compared to control. Principal axial dimensions, physical properties, and geometrical parameters of the produce were calculated to evaluate the grain vulnerability to the above treatments. Bulk Density and true density resulted in no significant difference between control and treated samples of browntop millet whereas porosity had significant difference. Principal dimensions such as length, width and thickness had not differed significantly in browntop millet. Geometric dimensions of browntop millet such as GMD, AMD, slenderness ratio, aspect ratio, sphericity, surface area and volume were evaluated and had no significant difference for control and treated samples except for volume of the grain(p<0.01). Thus the study revealed that preliminary treatments had shown significant impact on dehulling efficiency without disrupting physical properties, grain dimensions and geometric parameters