JP2866023B2 - Microwave processing equipment for grain for fermentation - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a technique of fermenting cereal, for example, cereals used in the treatment or the like for the manufacture by fermenting cereal liquor and fermented foods or the like (hereinafter referred to as fermentation products) And a microwave processing apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a technique for fermenting this kind of cereals, for example, in the case of producing alcoholic beverages, rice koji produced by adding koji mold to steamed rice obtained by adjusting (immersing) steamed white rice for koji and steaming. Was added to steamed rice obtained by adjusting the water content (immersing and steaming) of fermented white rice, and further adding sake mother or yeast to carry out alcohol fermentation.

[0003]

According to the above-mentioned conventional method for fermenting cereals on an industrial scale, the white rice for fermentation must be prepared by adjusting the water content (immersion) and steaming to produce rice koji, sake brewer or yeast. Even if added, alcohol fermentation was not possible, and it was thought that it could not be used for production of fermented products. For this reason, Tsu drawback there that consume a large amount of heat energy for steaming the fermentation for white rice.

It is therefore an object of the present invention has been made in view of the above drawbacks, by reducing the consumption of thermal energy, it is to provide a technique that allows the fermentation of inexpensive cereals.

[0005]

To ferment cereals,
It is said that a large number of holes, cracks, etc. (hereinafter simply referred to as cracks) for the action of microorganisms or yeasts that ferment and decompose the grains need to be present on the outer surface of the grains, and usually, the grains are steamed. It was later used in the fermentation process. That is,
It was thought that in order to form the cracks, the cereals had to be steamed with moisture. However, the present invention has been made based on a new finding that cracks can be formed in the grain simply by irradiating microwaves, and the present invention has been made in order to achieve the above object. The characteristic means of the microwave processing device for fermentation grains is that the grains can be transported freely while holding the grains in an enclosed space.
An apparatus and a grain conveyed while being held in the closed space
A microwave irradiation device that can irradiate the particles with microwaves is installed.
The transfer device is made of a material mainly composed of fluororesin.
A pair of conveyors with a conveyor belt formed from
Conveyed while holding the grain between these conveyor belts
It is configured so that a free enclosed space is formed
On the point. The operation and effect are as follows.

[0006]

[Function] Irradiation of microwaves to grains to ferment and decompose grains
Microorganisms and enzymes to act easily
Can form many cracks on the outer surface of the grain
You.

That is, many cracks are formed on the outer surface of the grain
Order to, as in the prior art, for the sometimes large amounts of water steaming grain not Senebanara high temperatures, accompanied by a large energy consumption, to the grain it is irradiated with microwaves in grain
Gives energy to only a small amount of water contained,
Multiple cracks can be formed on the outer surface.

[0008] The state in which the grains are held in the closed space
Irradiates microwaves, so that moisture evaporates from the kernels
Grains with too low a water content may become too hot
By controlling grain from burning (carbonizing)
It is possible for the moisture of the grain to hardly evaporate and to overheat and dry
Microwave irradiation can be performed in an appropriate state that does not cause dripping.

[0009] Further, the transporting device includes a pair of conveyors.
It is possible to transport the grains while holding the grains between these transport belts.
Since it is provided and configured so that a closed space is formed,
Microwave irradiation by the microwave irradiation device can be easily performed, and the degree of microwave irradiation on the kernel can be easily adjusted by adjusting the conveying speed of the kernel.

Further, the conveyor belt of each conveyor which requires flexibility is formed from a material mainly composed of fluororesin.
Therefore, since the fluorine resin is generally considered to be a material having excellent microwave permeability, it is possible to efficiently irradiate the kernel from the microwave from the microwave irradiator.

[0011]

As described above , a large number of cracks are formed in a grain with a small amount of energy consumption for irradiating microwaves.
Without steaming grain, since it is possible to convert the fermentable easy state, while reducing the consumption of thermal energy, and has become possible to perform the fermentation of inexpensive cereals. In addition, microwaves can be efficiently radiated to the kernels, and the water in the kernels does not easily evaporate.
In addition, while adjusting the irradiation degree,
Come, taste fermented product can be prevented inconveniences decreases.

[0012]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the microwave processing apparatus for cereals of the present invention includes a pair of belt conveyors 1 and 2, and a rice grain supply device 3 that supplies white rice s between the belt conveyors 1 and 2. A microwave irradiator 4 capable of irradiating microwaves to the white rice s supplied between the belt conveyors 1 and 2 is provided above the belt conveyors 1 and 2. Further, on the downstream side of the belt conveyors 1 and 2, there is provided a rice grain collecting device 5 for collecting the white rice s irradiated with the microwave, and the rice grains have passed through the belt conveyors 1 and 2 below the belt conveyors 1 and 2. A microwave reflection unit 6 for reflecting microwaves and re-irradiating the white rice is provided, and a transport speed control device 7 for adjusting the operating speed of the pair of belt conveyors 1 and 2 individually is provided. . Also, the microwave processing apparatus for cereals used below,
The belts a and a of the belt conveyors 1 and 2 are made of Teflon, have a width of about 30 cm, and have a capacity of the microwave irradiation device 4 of 3.9 kW. Reference numeral 8 in the figure denotes a casing configured to prevent microwave leakage to the outside of the device.

When sake is brewed by using the cereal microwave processing apparatus of the present invention, the brewing is performed as follows.

First, white rice s is stored as raw rice in a rice grain supply device, the white rice s is supplied from the rice grain supply device 3 between the belt conveyors 1 and 2, and the white rice s is supplied between the belt conveyors 1 and 2. The microwaves are irradiated on the white rice s by the microwave irradiating device 4 while being conveyed while being sandwiched between them (microwave processing step). At this time, as shown in FIG. 2, the belt a of the lower belt conveyor 1 bends, and the upper belt conveyor 2 comes into close contact with the lower belt conveyor 1 so as to cover the white rice s. Is sandwiched above and below the belt a and is in a state in which microwave processing can be performed in a sealed state.

The microwave treatment step was repeated three times. The overheated white rice immediately after the microwave treatment step
Was allowed to cool and then subjected to the next microwave treatment step.
Finally, the rice that has been subjected to the microwave treatment process is
After the temperature was adjusted (temperature adjusting step), brewing was performed under the conditions shown in Table 1 using the rice as fermented rice (fermentation step).

[0016]

[Table 1]

[0017] Separately, brewing was performed under the conditions shown in Table 2 using steamed rice as the hanging rice by a conventional brewing method.

[0018]

[Table 2]

The difference between the two brewing conditions is the difference in the amount of rice and water used. The difference is that the microwave-treated rice has a moisture content of about 12%, whereas the steamed rice has a moisture content of about 12%. Taking into account that the ratio is 30%, the ratio of rice to water is set under substantially the same conditions as a whole. Tables 3 and 4 show the results of brewing under these conditions. In addition, in each case, it carried out while maintaining 15 degreeC.

[0020]

[Table 3]

[0021]

[Table 4]

As a result, the microwave treatment of the grains of the present invention
When using the device , the rice is fully digested on the 13th day,
It was found that the sake could be squeezed into sake, indicating that the fermentation had progressed well. On the thirteenth day, the degree of formation of isoamyl acetate acetate, which is a main fragrance component, was examined.
Whereas, according to the method of the present invention, 13.3 pp
m and about three times the degree of production were confirmed, and it was proved that the sake had excellent aroma. It was found that the amount of alcohol produced was large, the liquefaction rate improved, and a new type of liquor could be made.

Further, the results of examination on the conditions of the microwave treatment step are shown below.

The digestion test was carried out with a starch liquefaction enzyme in order to carry out microwave treatment steps by changing the conveying speed of the above-mentioned cereal microwave treatment apparatus in various ways, and to examine the effect on each grain. . The results are as shown in Table 5.

[0025]

[Table 5]

In the microwave irradiation, 500 g of a sample was treated on a rice grain by a 3.9 kW microwave irradiation apparatus. In addition, a digestion test was conducted by adding 40 units / g of white rice of Gluc S (manufactured by Amano Pharmaceutical Co.) to 10 g of rice, and
The reaction was carried out at 0 ° C. for 5 days (in the presence of a preservative).

From Table 5, it can be seen that although raw white rice is hardly digested by liquefied enzymes, microwave-treated rice is more easily digested by liquefied enzymes than or more than steamed rice. The conditions for wave treatment are:
When microwave irradiation treatment is performed to the extent that burning odor does not occur, the conditions suitable for fermentation are low because the change in UV absorbance is small and the decomposition of white rice tissue is small, and the production of glucose is improved. It can be seen that it has been obtained.
In addition, it can be seen that the digestibility is further improved when the microwave treatment to such an extent that no burning smell occurs is performed a plurality of times.

[0028] In the above examples mentioned, an example of brewing sake from rice, when producing an alcoholic beverage of shochu from the grain, such as wheat, using white rice or wheat, beans, etc., vinegar , Soy sauce, miso, etc., and furthermore, when brewing sake, in addition to using the white rice as kake rice, koji is manufactured using the white rice that has been subjected to the microwave treatment step, and fermentation is performed. It may be subjected to the process, the grain is to include the rice, wheat, beans, etc., and the fermented products include sake, shochu, soy sauce, mirin, miso, vinegar, etc., the microwave treatment step Further, other steps such as koji making may be included between the fermentation step. In the fermentation step, a known method is appropriately applied according to the type of cereals to be used and the target fermented product.

In the claims, reference numerals are provided for convenience of comparison with the drawings, but the present invention is not limited to the configuration shown in the attached drawings.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a longitudinal sectional side view of a microwave processing apparatus.

FIG. 2 is a longitudinal sectional front view of the microwave processing apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1, 2 Conveyor 4 Microwave irradiation device s Grain

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-59-227257 (JP, A) JP-A-3-232540 (JP, A) JP-A-8-112067 (JP, A) JP-A-3-3 123458 (JP, A) JP-A-2-135149 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁶ , DB name) C12G 3/02 A23L 1/10 A23L 1/202 103

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A state in which a grain (s) is held in an enclosed space.
And a transport device that can be transported in the closed space.
Microwaves can be applied to the grain (s) conveyed in a state
And a microwave irradiation device (4), wherein the transfer device is made of a material mainly composed of fluororesin.
A pair of conveyors provided with the formed conveyor belt (a)
(1,2), the grain between the conveyor belts (a)
(S) is held and a closed space that can be transported is formed.
Microwave processing of cereals for fermentation
Equipment.