ARS | Publication request: THE INFLUENCE OF MOISTURE CONTENT AND COOKING ON THE SCREW PRESSING OF CORN OIL FROM CORN GERM

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: April 4, 2005
Publication Date: April 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.

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.