CONTINUOUS PRODUCTION OF AN INSTANT CORN FLOUR FOR SNACK AND TORTILLA, USING A NEUTRAL ENZYMATIC PRECOOKING

摘要

Precooked and partially-debranned corn flour is continuously produced by anenzymatic precooking using a commercial blend of xylanase, endoamylase andendoprotease as a processing aid. The low-temperature and neutral-pHprecooking with an endoenzyme solution effected a partial bran hydrolysiswhile avoiding excessive pregelatinization, reduced washing and corn solidloss in wastewater. Moisture content is then stabilized, followed by millingand drying at a high-temperature and short-time to produce a controlledgelatinization and denaturation in the ground kernel, cooling and furtherdrying the dried-ground particle. A fine particle size or flour is separatedand recovered from the coarser particle which is also segregated to isolate apartially hydrolysed bran fraction for integral flour or animal feed diet,remilling and sieving the coarser particle to produce an instant corn flourfor snack, and admixing the fine particle with lime to obtain a masa flour fortortilla and other corn foods.