A Hand Operated White Pepper Peeling Machine

摘要

White pepper is preferred over black pepper by the people of certain countries as the color matches with light colored food preparations, sauces and soups. White pepper, that gives modified natural flavour to the foodstuff and imparts pungency, is prepared from ripe pepper berries by removing the outer skin by rubbing with hands or trampling after the retting process.rnA hand operated pepper peeling machine was developed and its performance evaluated to overcome this unhygienic method. The machine consisted of a blade and brush assembly mounted on a shaft. The whole assembly was enclosed by a perforated cylinder. A pinion (21 teeth) was mounted on the rotor shaft and a gear wheel (110 teeth). A handle was used to mesh with the pinion for manual operation of the peeler. Panniyurl variety was used for evaluation. The unit was evaluated for its performance by varying clearance between the blade and outer perforated cylinder (4, 6, 8 and 10 mm). Pretreatments included retting, blanching and no treatment at a constant peripheral blade speed 14 m/min. Maximum peeling efficiency was 82.2 % at 4 mm clearance. Minimum breakage was 10.6 % at 10 mm clearance.