Starch Process
Making Cassava Starch
Firstly to produce premium quality cassava starch, the fresh roots must be healthy without rot and well handled from farm and should be processed within 24 hours after harvesting. It should be sent to a modern Starch Processing Plant (SPP) that utilizes market leading starch processing technology from manufacturers such as LARSSON Sweden to ensure the highest quality product. The following steps are applied to produce cassava starch that meets the high international standards of hygiene, environmental and product quality.
STEP 1. CLEANING
The fresh cassava roots will be transported by conveyor to the dry sieve. The dry sieve rotates its inner spirals to push cassava moving forward and in the process some peels and dirt be removed.
STEP 2. WASHING
Then the cassava then washed with a paddle washer with clean water to remove the residual surface mud and sand.
STEP 3. CUTTING
The cassava is transported to the cutting machine that will cut in 3 to 5cm in length. This will help relieve some pressure on the Rasping machine in the next step.
STEP 4. RASPING
At this step, the cut cassava is fed into the LARSSON Rasper, the most modern on the market. This machine will finely crush the cassava into a high quality starch slurry.
STEP 5. EXTRACTION
The crashed starch is sent to the LARSSON Centrifugal Sieve in order to separate and purify the starch. The sieve will remove fiber and some dirt out of cassava starch slurry leaving it will with less than 0.05% fiber impurities.
STEP 6. DESANDING
To improve taste sand is removed. The starch slurry is pumped into a Cyclone Desander by a pressure pump. Then, according to the principle of gravity separation, the bottom stream will remove the sand while starch slurry flows through the top to achieve the purpose of sand removal.
STEP 7. REFINING
This step is to wash, concentrate and refine the starch slurry. The cassava starch slurry will be passed into the LARSSON Hydrocyclone in order to (I) use centrifugal force to separate the protein and cell liquid out of the slurry, and (2) wash and concentrate. The result is a pure white Cassava Starch Milk.
STEP 8. DEWATERING
In preparation for drying, the Cassava Starch Milk is dewatered to achieve a water content of less than 40%. The starch milk is passed into the LARSSON Rotary Vacuum Filter that is specifically designed for dewatering starch slurry and to meet the high hygienic standards of today.
STEP 9. DRYING
The final step is to dry the starch to international standards. The starch will be piped into the LARSSON Flash Dryer where it will mix with heated high speed fresh air to a required moisture content 10% – 14% to produce premium quality Cassava Flour.
STEP 10. PACKING
Cassava flour will be packed by automatic packing machine. Pack desired quantities of cassava flour in polythene bags, seal or stitch as appropriate.