DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF NEERA TAPPING AND CHILLING EQUIPMENT
Loading...
Date
2020-12-28
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
A farmer could increase his income by 15 times from a coconut tree by neera tapping. Neera is a health drink rich in minerals, antioxidants and vitamins. Naturally sap flows slowly rather in the form of drips from the cut spadix making susceptible to fermentation. Collection of unfermented sap is thus a challenging task. Therefore, the present work was carried out to chill the neera by dripping over the cooling module placed in the insulated container during the tapping process. Spherical module (150 mm in diameter) and collection-cum-chilling tank of 5 L capacity were developed and the cooling performance was evaluated. The sap was collected and cooled for 4 and 5 h duration by dripping over the cooling module. The temperature recorded after 4 and 5 h of tapping and cooling of neera was to be 7.2 and 9.1 °C, respectively, when the corresponding ambient temperatures were 25-27°C and 37-39°C. Quality and shelf-life of control (uncooled) and cooled neera sample were evaluated after 16 h of tapping. Total sugars and alcohol content in control were 5.4 and 0.0152 per cent. Alcohol content was not detected in the cooled sample while total sugars was observed to be 10.6 per cent. The sensory score of cooled neera sample and market sample was slightly over 8 and the sensory score of control was 6.4. The developed device can be used to chill neera without developing fermentation and maintaining its freshness and quality.
Description
Thesis