Investigation of the effect of different comminution methods on the quality of chilli powder

Abstract

The quality degradation of chilli during comminution was investigated through modelling. Two different comminution methods were studied, namely grinding and high-speed cutting. The colour of the chilli powders, the concentration of two major capsaicinoid compounds, and moisture loss in the powders were taken as the quality indicators. The kinetics of quality degradation was modelled. It was found that although the quality indicators of chilli powder produced by grinding were generally inferior to those by high-speed cutting, the rate of quality degradation by the former was much lower than that by the later. The mechanism behind this finding is also discussed in this paper.