Plantain chips process

The basic unit operations of plantain chips machine involved in plantain chips production is:

Sorting: This involves inspection of plantain fingers to identify and remove unsuitable ones i.e. spoilt, low pulp sugar or immature pulps.

Weighing: The sorted plantains are properly weighed to quantify input of raw plantain.

Trimming/Peeling: The plantain peels are removed manually using sharp knives to obtain the pulp

Slicing: The pulp is sliced into 5mm cylindrical slices using a plantain slicer.

Salting: The plantain slices are steeped in 2% table salt solution in plastic vat for about 5-10 minutes to potentiate the taste of the fried plantain, to serve as preservative against microbial growth and to maintain the colour by avoiding browning effect.

Draining: After salting, the plantain slices are drained of salt solution using plastic or metal (stainless steel) sieve.

Frying: The drained plantain slices are fried into plantain chips fryer in hot vegetable oil or a mixture of vegetable oils (impregnated with anti-oxidant) at 110-120℃ for 2-5 minutes to achieve adequate frying (without traces of undesirable browning) giving a brownish-yellow colour chips.

Cooling: The fried plantain chips are allowed to cool to the ambient temperature by natural air cooling method. Adequate cooling prevents moisture condensation on the packaging material.

Packaging: The chips are packaged in printed 100g cellophane packs or sachets and heat sealed to retain desirable crispiness of the chips throughout their shelf-life. The sachets are packaged in cartons of fifty.

[From: http://agriculturenigeria.com/agro-processing/processing-of-crops/plantain-chips]

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