CONTINUOUS PRODUCTION OF AN INSTANT CORN FLOUR FOR AREPA AND TORTILLA, USING AN ENZYMATIC PRECOOKING.

摘要

Precooking and partially-debranned corn flour is produced in a continuous process. First, the cleaned corn kernel is precooked with at a near neutral-pH with heated water and a xylanase in a precooker (1) to effect a partial bran hydrolysis. The precooked corn kernel is then passed to a washer (2) where it is washed with steam-heater water. After the moisture content of the precooked washed corn kernel is stabilized using a preconditioner (3), the preconditioned kernel is fed to a mill (4) and a dryer (6) to produce a controlled gelatinization in the ground kernel. The ground kernel is then cooled and further dryed in a cooler (8) with ambient air. The cooled ground corn is fed to a sifter where a fine fraction is separated and recovered from a coarser fraction, which is also segregated to partially isolate a bran fraction for animal feed or integral flour. The coarser fraction is remilled and served to produce an instant corn flour for arepa. The fine fraction is admixed with lime to obtain a masa flour for tortilla.