Comparative Study on Different Drying Techniques for Determining the Moisture Content of Cereals/Millets and Pulses

Cereals/millets and pulses are an important parts of healthy and balanced diet and hence helps in bridging the gap of protein hunger malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies. To increase the shelf life of perishable and non-perishable food items, drying is one of the primary and oldest processing techniques that the food grains are subjected to. The convection oven drying method is one of the commonly used methods for the estimation of moisture in marketing enterprises and industries but as the time consumption is quite higher in this process a replacement but quick and dependable technique is essential. One variety rice (Luit variety), one variety of millets and one variety of pulses (samples) were used for the study. Experiments with temperature varying from 30-60 °C and varied time intervals (15 minutes) were conducted in a microwave oven and convection oven using the samples. The main parameters used for the study were temperature and time which was recorded after a time interval of 15 minutes1. The results stated that the process of drying takes place at a falling rate period i.e. with the rise in temperature the moisture content decreases. At a very long process the drying rate, the curve slop becomes less sharp and slowly tends to be horizontal at longer period of time. The values are calculated when the moisture content of the samples becomes constant. Drying food grains for a longer time period have adverse effect in the nature of the samples along with it can result in income loss of marketing industries.Salient findings from the study can be that the alternative means for the convection oven drying can be microwave oven drying as it can be a favorable method for the estimation of moisture content in food grains.