Modeling of heat and mass transfer for texture improvement in microwave boiled lentils

Abstract

Paper presented at the 7th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Turkey, 19-21 July, 2010.Lentil is an excellent source of proteins and various micro nutrients such as vitamin A, potassium, B vitamins, and iron, and it provides fiber with no cholesterol and virtually no fat. Canadian red lentils were soaked in ambient water for different times ranging from 0-120 mins. The soaked lentils were boiled in a custom built microwave setup at 2450 MHz with different lentil to water ratio of I:I, I:1.5 and I :2 for different durations of 20 mins, 40 mins and I hour. The mechanism of heat transfer and the fluid dynamics during microwave boiling of lentils were investigated. An empirical diffusion model was developed based on the assumption that there was no significant change in the hound moisture content due to protein denaturation. The rheological parameters of the boiled lentils were measured and compared. The parameters of soaking time, power density and boiling time were optimised for microwave boiling of lentils for better rheological quality. The model fits the data well and can be used to tweak the microwave boiling process of lentils to obtain desirable results.