High Quality Cassava Flour

High quality cassava flour is simple unfermented cassava flour. The IITA production process minimizes the capital investment requirements for flour production by making use of simple equipment already used for gari processing.

    This technique is suitable for preparing cassava flour from both sweet and bitter varieties

    Mini-chippers were also tried in place of the mechanical grater but were found to be unsuitable for bitter varieties because the concentration of cyanogenic glucosides was not reduced sufficiently during processing.

    Equipment required

1. Grater
2. Press
3. Dryer
4. Pin mill

    Stitching machine

    Under optimal conditions (dry sunny weather for sun drying), the IITA technique enables small-scale primary processors to produce high quality unfermented cassava flour that meets the specifications of industrial users within one day.

    Drying has been identified as the major tool for expanding processing of cassava into high quality cassava flour.

    Various options have been considered so far in the cassava project at IITA.

    Natural drying
    Local processors expose cassava mash on a polythene sheet directly to the sun. This is referred to as “sun drying”. The project observed that drying at rural or domestic levels cannot be done artificially because of the high capital investment in equipment and energy required and hence, natural sun drying is done.

    Sun drying is beset by several inherent drawbacks, such as susceptibility to damage due to inclement weather, slow drying rates, and contamination. Because of these limitations and the high cost and low utilization of more efficient traditional dryers, the adoption of a modified sun drying process, solar drying, has been considered for drying HQCF in rural areas