PULSE MILLING – HOME SCALE, COTTAGE SCALE AND

MODERN MILLING METHODS- WET MILLING AND DRY

MILLING- MILLING OF PIGEON PEA, CHICK PEA, BLACK
GRAM, GREEN GRAM, PEAS, LENTIL- DEVELOPMENT IN
PREMILLING TREATMENT
INTRODUCTION
 Pulses are mostly consumed in the form of
dehusked splits, commonly known as dal.
 The outer layer of the grain (husk) is attached to

the protein and starch bearing cotyledons of the

pulse grains.
 In some grains like pigeonpea, mungbean and

urdbean, this bonding is strong due to the

presence of a layer of gums in between the husk
and the cotyledons. These are known as difficult-
to-mill pulses.
 In other grains like chickpea, pea, lathyrus etc.,

this bonding is comparatively weaker. Such

grains can be milled easily and are categorized
as easy-to-mill pulses.
 The process of removal of husk from the cotyledons is called
dehusking and the entire process of dehusking and subsequent
splitting of cotyledons, its cleaning, polishing and grading is
known as milling.
 Dehusking improves product appearance, texture, product

quality, palatability and digestibility.

 A substantial amount of avoidable loss takes place at different

stages of milling. This may vary from 10-15% depending upon

the type and quality of grain milled, the process and
machinery used for milling and other factors.
 It is, therefore, important to look at different aspects of milling

so that proper process and machinery are used to obtain

maximum recovery of good quality dal from the grain and
take corrective measures to reduce milling losses to the
minimum.
 Pulse milling is the third largest food processing industry after
rice and flour milling. An estimated 75% of pulses produced
are processed for making dal in mills of different capacities.
Milling of pulses involves two major steps:
 loosening of husk and

 Removal of husk and splitting into cotyledons with the help of

suitable machine.
 All kinds of pulses require some pre-milling treatment for ease

of husk removal.
 Dehusking is an age-old practice, which originated at home

and later developed into a cottage industry and now has grown
in to a large – scale organized industry.
HOME SCALE MILLING
 This involves pounding of grains for dehusking by using a mortar and
pestle after mixing with small quantity of water and drying in the sun
for a few hours.
 Sun-drying after water application helps to loosen the husk from the
cotyledons.
 In mortars, dehusking is achieved due to shearing action between
pestle and grains, and abrasive effect between the grains.
 Once the pounding is done for several minutes, the husk gets detached
from the grains.
 Winnowing separates husk and split cotyledons are separated from the
whole dehusked and unhusked grains by manual sieving.
 The whole grains are again pounded for further dehusking and
splitting.
 This technique of dehusking is generally adopted when small quantity
i.e., up to 5 kg of pulses is to be dehusked. Dal yield by this process is
quite low (50-60%) due to breakage and chipping of the edges of
cotyledons.
COTTAGE SCALE MILLING
 Traditionally, villagers use the hand operated wooden or stone chakki/
sheller when comparatively large quantities of pulses are to be
dehusked.
 The preconditioning of grains before milling is done either by
prolonged sun drying until the hulls are loosened or through
application of water followed by several hours of sun drying and
tempering.
 The heating of the grains in pan with or without sand along with
vigorous stirring is also in practice. The duration of treatment depends
upon the variety of pulses to be milled.
 Of late, mechanized shellers and plate mills are used for custom
milling of preconditioned pulses.
 At cottage level milling, often the husk is not completely removed and
breakage is also quite high. This reduces the consumer appeal and
value of the product.
 The yield of head dal obtained from these techniques may vary in the
range of 55-70% depending upon the variety of pulse and pre-
treatment used.
COMMERCIAL SCALE MILLING
 Commercial scale milling involves processing
large quantities of pulses in plants of bigger
capacities.
 Even though, the basic milling procedure is

similar, specifics of dehusking methods vary

widely from one dal mill to another dal mill and
region to region.
 Two methods for large scale processing or pulses

are in practice.
 Traditional method, most commonly followed by

dal millers, is almost similar to cottage level

treatment in principles.
 A modern method of milling has been developed

at CFTRI which is independent of weather

conditions.
 It has already been said that the milling process varies from
TRADITIONAL MILLING

mill to mill and region to region and no standard or common

process is in practice.
 The sequence of operations like pre-milling treatment,

conditioning, dehusking, and splitting is normally common.

Large variation exists in the steps followed in milling but
basic unit operations remain the same.
Milling Process
 Essentially milling process involves cleaning, grading,

pitting, treatment milling and polishing operations. Usually

milling processes are described for the toughest to mill pulse
grains i.e., pigeonpea. The major steps involve in pulse
milling are discussed below:
Cleaning and grading
 It involves removing dust, dirt, foreign material, off sized,

immature and damaged grains and grading in two or more

fractions to process separately.
Pitting
 Use of emery-coated roller is a common practice in

commercial dal mills.

 The emery coating is used for abrasive or refractory action.

 Whole pulses are passed through abrasive roller machine for

scratching of seed to facilitate the entry of oil/water in the

grain during pre-milling treatment.
PRE-MILLING TREATMENTS
 The treatment is given for loosening of husk from cotyledons,
which is attached through a gum layer is called pre-milling
treatment.
 Mostly premilling treatments are developed for pigeonpea.

Water soaking, oil and water application, mixing of sodium

bi-carbonate solution and thermal applications are commonly
recommended and adopted pre-milling treatments.
 For commercial milling in large capacity dal mills, oil and

water treatment is commonly adopted, whereas for household

milling, water treatment is popularly used.
 Different methods are employed in different regions

depending upon type of grain. This also varies from mill to

mill. Pre-treatments can be broadly classified into i) wet
treatment and ii) dry treatment.
WET TREATMENT
 In this method of treatment, soaking and drying are
considered as effective technique to loosen the husk.
 This method has the advantage of facilitating dehusking and

splitting the cotyledons, giving less breakage. This can be

attributed to lower deshusking percentage of grains in water
treatment process.
 However, it has the disadvantage of being weather
dependent and labour intensive.
 Dal produced by this method cooks better but takes longer

time to cook.
 Commonly adopted red earth treatment is considered as wet

method.
 In this method, grains are thoroughly mixed with a paste of
red earth after soaking in water for about 12 hours and heaping
for about 16 hours.
 The grains are spread in thin layer in drying yards for 2–4

days. When dried, the red earth is removed by sieving and the
grains are then milled on power operated stone or emery
coated vertical chakki to yield dal.
Dry treatment
 Dry milling treatment is reported to produce dal that cooks

faster, however, losses due to broken and powdering are high.

 In dry method, oil/water application followed by drying are

important steps in processing of pulses.

 In this process, after cleaning and grading, grains are pitted
and then mixed with about 1% oil (linseed), thoroughly and
spread for sun drying in thin layer, for 2–3 days.
 At the end of drying, 2-5% of water is sprayed, mixed

thoroughly and tempered for overnight.

 Tempered grains are dehusked in roller machines to give

dehusked grains and dal.

Tempering
 Once the pre-milling treatment is given, conditioning is done

to have uniformity of treatment throughout the grain mass.

 This process gives time for better penetration of oil/water

beneath the seed coat to dissolve gums.

DRYING
 In most of the mills in India, sun drying method is
commonly practiced.
 Grains are spread in thin layer on pucca floor

under the sun and stirred frequently with rake/feet

for even drying. This operation makes process of
dal milling a very lengthy requiring (2-3 days).
 In this case, sun-dried grains require more passes

and consumes more energy.

 The drying time with the use of dryers ranges

between 2-3 hrs, which results in tremendous time

saving.
 Dryers are used in few mills that too in rainy

seasons for drying of treated grains.

DEHUSKING AND SPLITTING
 Dal mills by and large use emery rollers for dehusking and splitting.

 In case of pigeonpea, more than 3 passes are required for complete

milling.
 Other pulses take one or two passes in emery mill in order to

achieve maximum milling.

 The physical, chemical and structural strength of grain coupled with

the functional and mechanical characteristics of processing units

jointly play an important role.
 Grain properties such as hardness, load deformation behaviour,

shape, size density and variety of grain etc. have considerable effect
on dal yield.
 The machine parameters such as roller speed, clearance, emery size

etc. have vital role to play on dal recovery.

 As a result of milling, unhusked and dehusked whole grains, split

cotyledons, broken, husk and powder are obtained.

POLISHING
 Polishing is done to increase consumers appeal and is a form of
value addition, though not desirable.
 Dal is polished in different ways, such as nylon polish, oil/water
polish, leather and makhmal polish.
 Generally polishing is done using soap stone, oil or water. Polishing
gives uniform look and shine to each grain.
MILLING OF INDIVIDUALS PULSES
 Depending upon ease of milling, pulses are categorized in easy
and difficult to mill pulses.
 Presence of gum layer in between seed coat and cotyledon, its
quality and quantity plays an important role in dehusking process.
 Lentil, chickpea and peas come under easy-to-mill category,
whereas pigeonpea, mungbean and urdbean fall under difficult-to-
mill pulse crops.
 Gums and mucilage present beneath the seed coat cause adherence
of seed coat with the cotyledons.
 Pigeonpea is considered to be the toughest-to-mill among all pulse
crops. Certain pulses like pigeonpea, urdbean, mungbean, and
horsegram pose great difficulty in dehusking, while pulses like
chickpea, peas, lentil and khesari are relatively easy to dehusk.
 Higher degree of attachment causes heavy milling loss in the form
of broken and powder. Therefore, loosening of husk prior to
milling through various treatments is an essential prerequisite.
PIGEONPEA
 This is the most difficult kind of pulse to mill because of tight
attachment of husk to the seed coat.
 The clean and graded grains are pitted (scratched over the seed
surface), oil smeared (0.2-0.5%), tempered for half to one day in bins,
treated with water (in the ratio 1:20-25), stored overnight and
sundried for 2-3 days before passing through the emery roll.
 Such type of husk loosening and dehusking operations are repeated 2-
4 times till more than 90% grains are dehusked.
 Dal obtained during this method is termed as Grade-II dal as edges of
most of the dal gets rounded off during milling.
 The mixture of dehusked and unhusked whole grain is further
sprinkled with water and tempered for few hours, sundried and
splitted in horizontal or vertical chakkies or by using patka machine.
 The dal thus obtained is considered as Grade-I dal since it has no
chipped edges dal and has better customer acceptability.
 The recovery of pigeonpea varies from 68-75%, depending upon
variety milled and method followed.
CHICK PEA
 It falls in easy-to-mill category of pulse.
 Dehusking after cleaning and grading can be done in roller mills.
Splitting of ‘gota' (dehusked whole grain) is carried out by treating
the grain with water in ratio 1: 2.5 to 3.0, followed by tempering
for 12 hours and splitting in disk sheller.
 This does not require oil application for loosening of husk. The
process is repeated till all the grains are dehusked.
 Recovery from dal varies from 78–82%. Chana dal and broken can
further be processed to produce besan.
 At household level, the burr mill is used to obtain besan.
 Hammer mills, which beat the dal to the particle size till it passes
through the sieve of desired particle size, are employed at cottage
and large scale for besan making.
 The recovery from these besan plants is 98% and only 2% of dal is
lost due to burning and are lost in form of unrecoverable dust.
URAD DAL
 The process involves cleaning, grading and pitting in emery
roller mills.
 Two or three passes will be required to complete dehusking and

pitting operation.
 Husk and powder produced in each pass must be removed after

every pass.
 About 0.5% oil is applied to the pitted grains, which are then

stored for 12 hours. The grains are then sundried for about 2-3
days followed by water spraying in the ratio of 1:25-30 and
tempered overnight.
 These grains are passed through rollers for dehusking. The dal

splits obtained is called Grade-II dal. The ‘gota' obtained is

passed through burr mill to make Grade-I quality dal.
 To give luster and enhance market value, dals are polished using

soapstone powder.
MUNG DAL
 It is difficult-to-mill because husk have the high degree of
adherence to cotyledons.
 Husk is thin, soft and slippery in texture.

 Bond between the two cotyledons is weak, therefore, splitting

occurs prior to dehusking.

 In order to achieve proper dehusking of mungbean grains, oil

treatment is applied.
 Pitting, oil smearing and sun drying are followed by

dehusking and splitting in roller machines.

 The loss in form of broken and powder is large in case of

mungbean due to its thin seed coat and rubbing operation

during dehusking.
PEAS
 This is easy to dehusk. The whole grains of peas
are sold as such in the market generally after
polishing to enhance the customer appeal.
 However, its dal is consumed in some parts of

the country.
 The milling process includes cleaning, grading,

moisture application, tempering and sun drying

up to the milling moisture content (10-12%, d.b.).
 Dehusking and splitting can be achieved in roller

mills or disk sheller. Recovery dal from peas

ranges from 80–82%.
LENTIL
 Both of these pulses falls in category of easy-to-mill type of
pulses.
 The practice usually applied involves moisture addition after

cleaning and grading process, followed by tempering and sun

drying.
 Dehusking and splitting is carried out in roller machines.

 Dehusking process is repeated till all grains are split and

dehusked.
DEVELOPMENTS IN PREMILLING TREATMENT:
 As pigeonpea grains are most difficult-to-mill, most of the
researches about pre-milling treatments and pulse milling were
confined to pigeonpea only. Until recently, few pre-milling
treatments viz., heat, chemical, enzyme etc., were tried at
various research organizations for milling of pigeonpea.
 However, oil and water treatment is most prevalent in modern

dal mills. Water soaking followed by sun drying is commonly

adopted at rural level pigeonpea processing.
 Traditionally water/oil treatments are given for loosening of

husk. These traditional pre-milling techniques are labour

intensive, wasteful and weather dependent.
 Attempts have been made by various Research and

Development institutions to develop improved processes for

pre-treatment of pigeonpea
PANTNAGAR PROCESS (CHEMICAL TREATMENT)
 In this method, cleaned and graded pigeonpea grains are
treated with 10 per cent sodium bicarbonate solution mixed in
the ratio of 30:1.
 These grains are then heaped for 5 hours at 30 °C followed by

drying under the sun.

 The tempered and dried grains are passed through rollers.

Pantnager process utilizes traditional milling machinery.

 The milled product is cleaned and graded with a blower,

cyclone separator and grader.

 It is claimed that if pre-milling treatment is properly given, 91-

95% dehusking is achieved in single pass having 4-5% whole

grain. The husk, broken and powder are removed separately.
 The gota (dehusked whole grain) obtained is mixed with 2-
2.5% water and kept for 4 hours for tempering. These grains
are passed through splitter for dal making.
 It has also been observed during the tests conducted that 80–

90% of total Sodium content is removed with husk and

powder.
 Whereas the remaining traces of sodium in dal improves its

cooking quality and storage characteristics. The dal recovery

has been claimed as 80%.
 Advantage of this method is that it eliminates the use of oil.

 But the problem with this method is that the chemical solution

goes with the husk and this may be harmful to cattles, if used
as cattle feed.
PANTNAGAR PROCESS (ENZYMATIC TREATMENT)
 At Pantnagar, milling experiments were conducted on enzyme
treated pigeonpea grains at different combination of pre-
treatment parameters such as moisture content of seed,
incubation period and temperature.
 The results obtained indicated that enzymatic pre-treatment

has positive effect on hulling efficiency.

 Hulling efficiency of untreated grains was found to be

60.82%, while the same for enzyme and water treated grains
was achieved at 89.68 and 73.90%, respectively.
 The enzyme treatment not only increases the hulling

efficiency but also reduces the amount of powder formed.

 Besides, it has also been claimed that enzyme treatment

improves digestibility of dal protein and reduces cooking

time.
 CIAE PROCESS
 Cleaned and graded pigeonpea grains are fed in a roller mill
for scratching.
 The clearance between the outer screen cage and inner

abrasive roller is fixed and maintained throughout the process.

 Once the scratching is over, then grains are cleaned to separate

the husk and split grains.

 Whole and split grains are soaked in water at ambient

temperature for 25-30 minutes to produce moisture content of

about 35 (%, w.b.) and then dried to 10% moisture content.
 The dried grains are milled in a cylindrical abrasive mill to

produce dehusked split dal, which is separated from other

constituents with an air-screen grain cleaner.
 The average recovery for pigeonpea is claimed to be 75%.

This method eliminates the use of edible oil in the milling

process.
CFTRI PROCESS
 The technology developed at CFTRI overcomes the major
problems of weather dependent nature of pulse milling
industry and gives high dal yield in lesser time.
 The process is independent of weather conditions and

eliminates the use of oil.

 The loosening of husk is achieved by heating of grains in hot

air current followed by tempering.

 Removal of husk and splitting of grains is achieved by

improved processing machines.

 This conditioning technique through heat treatment and

moisture adjustment of the cleaned, size-graded grains

loosens the husk, while making it fragile and brittle besides
hardening the kernels
 The process involves two passes in a drier with 160 °C hot air,
followed by tempering for 6 hours.
 The operation is continuous, replaces sun drying and carried

out indoors.
 It is claimed that this method gives average yield of 80% dal.

Many dal millers have not adopted this technique due to high
electrical energy consumption, non-availability of sufficient
and continuous supply of electricity, high cost of machinery,
and non-utilization of traditional milling machinery.
 However this method has definite advantages like less

requirement of manpower, no need of drying yard, no

requirement of edible oil etc., which demands due
considerations.

LECTURE # 8
MACHINE: HOME SCALE – PESTLE AND
MORTAR OR HAND DRIVEN DISK MILLS
(CHAKKI)
INTRODUCTION
 Most traditional methods are performed at home by families or
by small communities. The original method used in ancient
times was hand pounding with stones or mortar and pestle,
followed by the use of quern stones.
Mortar and Pestle: There are two different techniques:
 The grinding done by beating the grain (mortar and pestle)

 The grinding done by rubbing the grains between two stones

(wheel mill)
The method of mortar and pestle is the most widely used in the
West-African countryside. Before grinding, women usually
soak the seeds, and then let them either sit overnight or for
several hours in the sun, which allows the homogenization of
the moisture inside the grains.
 During the milling, the pounding mortar is interrupted by
several sieving that allow obtaining a range of different
products, from meal the finest flours.
 The advantage of this method is its versatility: The woman

totally controls the operation, so that she can adapt according

to the requirements and the available.
 The flour thus obtained contains between 22 and 26% water.

Its rapid fermentation, appreciated in the culinary

preparations, will not permit storage beyond one or two days.
 When the women change from this grinding by mortar and

pestle to the dry grinding with the mill, they must learn to dry
the grain after the shelling, and use less fermented flour, or
ferment the flour by moistening it after milling it.
CHAKKI
 The earliest form was a saddle quern that consisted of a large
gritty base stone and a small, fist-sized smooth stone. Seed
could be fractured into rough splits, or with continued
pounding reduced to a flour. The saddle quern later evolved
into rotary and oscillatory querns (also known as chakki).
 These consist of two large abrasive stones that fit together, the

bottom one slightly convex and the upper one slightly

concave. The top stone has a central hole in which seed is
slowly fed while the top stone is rotated by a wooden handle.
 As the top stone is rotated, the seed tumbles between the two

abrasive stones, resulting in dehulling and splitting of the seed.

 Continued turning of the top stone further reduces the split

seed to flour. Chakki-type mills are still often used by many

households in South-East Asia.
 After milling, an edible oil (such as linseed oil) and/or water
may be added to the dehulled seed or dhal to impart shine and
improve appearance (although oil addition may also decrease
shelf-life by increasing the rate of rancidity).
 Alternatively, dhal may be polished without oil/ water

addition using a cone-type polisher (similar to a rice polisher)

or a buffing machine consisting of leather straps on a rotating
paddle.
 Milling techniques are essentially founded on trial and error

over many hundreds of years and these secrets have been

passed from one generation to the next as tradition.
 The traditional stone chakki design was used as a template for
the attrition-type mills as commercial-scale dehulling and
splitting of pulses emerged.
 The two-stone principle was retained and the much larger

stones were rotated using the energy of harnessed animals

(such as bullocks) or running water (such as in the flour mills
of Europe). The mills were adapted as electricity became an
available power source, and automation increased.