Studies on copra drying for white coconut oil production
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Date
2015
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
Currently, copra is produced at a relatively small scale using a traditional process which involves
a high degree of manual labour. Copra production relatively takes longer time to dry and it is a
time consuming process. Sri Lanka, as a copra exporter in the world, it is needed to find out new
copra production methods, which give relatively high quality copra in order to produce high
quality coconut oil. Therefore it is needed to conduct studies on higher scale production process
which is more cost-effective than the current process, and which will give a consistently high
quality milling copra. This is to evaluate the effect of de-shelling on the copra drying process
compared to previously conducted trials. Therefore de-shelled coconut kernel is to dry in an
indirect heated copra dryer in Pannala area which is belong to Adamjee Lukmanjee & Sons (Pvt)
Ltd and to obtain good quality product and evaluating the product via standard quality
parameters.
Methodology
Drying experiments were carried out at Adamjee Lukmanjee & Sons (Pvt) Ltd. laboratory and
the hot air dryer located at the Pannala area which belongs to Adamjee Lukmanjee & Sons (Pvt)
Ltd. The research work was done as two parts. First laboratory scale experiment was done to
produce de-shelled copra and the next step was to do a trial run in large scale. In the current
study, coconut nuts were de-shelled and separated into three sizes as the cup size, half of the cup
and quarter of the cup as three replicates of each treatment. Normal cup size copra was used as
the reference. Drying time which takes to remove moisture content upto 6% from the coconut
kernel was recorded in each treatment. Then quality parameters of each treatment were evaluated
to obtain good quality copra product through the process of drying the de-shelled coconut nuts.
These properties such as: Total plate count (TPC), Yeast and mould (Y&M) and Free fatty acid
(FFA) content of de-shelled copra was measured by keeping one month period of time under
typical storage facilities. Free Fatty Acid levels in each replicates were measured for chemical
analysis. Trial was conducted using 10,000 coconut nuts to prepare de-shelled copra. All
experimental data with three replicates were analysed with one way ANOVA using Minitab 16
statistical software. All comparisons were based on a 95% confidence interval. Mean comparison
was done using Tukey test.
Results and Discussion
According to the drying time evaluation, there is a significant difference (P < 0.05) with the
control sample. Cup copra with the shell gives the highest time to dry out the kernel to 6 %
moisture. Free fatty acid content in the de-shelled copra is higher than the reference. This can be
due do the removal of the shell. But FFA is at the required level of standard milling copra used to
make oil. Total plate count is lower in control treatment. It can be noted that highest TPC
resulted in the cup copra without shell. This can be due to the external factors affect during the
Description
Keywords
Agriculture, Export Agriculture, Crop Production, Crop Production Technology, Coconut Oil Production