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Title: THE INFLUENCE OF MOISTURE CONTENT AND COOKING ON THE SCREW PRESSING OF CORN OIL FROM CORN GERM

Author
item Moreau, Robert
item Johnston, David
item Dickey, Leland
item Hicks, Kevin

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/4/2005
Publication Date: 4/5/2005
Citation: Moreau, R.A., Johnston, D., Dickey, L.C., Hicks, K.B. The influence of moisture content and cooking on the screw pressing of corn oil from corn germ. Meeting Abstract. 96th AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo. Salt Lake City, UT, May 1-5, 2005, Processing Poster 1.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: ABSTRACT Samples of corn germ were obtained from a commercial corn wet mill (factory dried to about 4% moisture) and a commercial corn dry mill (undried, produced in the mill with about 13% moisture). The germ samples (200 grams each) were cooked for various times in either a conventional oven at 180ºC, or a microwave oven at 1500 W. Bench-scale single screw pressing was then performed. With the dry milled corn germ, no oil was obtained from the uncooked germ. A maximum yield of about 5% oil (26% of total oil recovery, TOR, relative to hexane extraction) was obtained by cooking the dry milled germ for 6.5 minutes in a conventional oven at 180ºC before pressing. A maximum yield of about 7% oil (37% TOR) was obtained by cooking the dry milled germ for 4.5 minutes in a microwave oven at 1500 W before pressing. With the wet milled germ, yields of about 7% oil (18% TOR) were obtained with the uncooked germ and yields increased to a maximum of about 22% oil (56% TOR) by cooking in a conventional oven at 180ºC for 5 min or a maximum of about 17% oil (44% TOR) by cooking for 4 minutes in a microwave oven at 1500 W. These results indicate that microwave and conventional oven cooking are both effective pre-treatments before pressing. Microwave preheating resulted in higher oil yields with dry milled germ and conventional oven pre-treatment resulted in higher oil yields with factory-dried wet milled corn germ.