subject: Making White Pepper from Green & Black Pepper - CSIR - NIIST Technology [print this page] Making White Pepper from Green & Black Pepper - CSIR - NIIST Technology
Making White Pepper from Green & Black Pepper
I have seen this technologyin the CSIR Technofest 2010, showcased by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi, at India International Trade Fair during November 14-27, 2010 New Delhi, India. I came to know that "Making White Pepper from Green & Black Pepper" was developed by National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST), Thiruvananthapuram 695 019 (Trivandrum), under the aegis of CSIR, New Delhi.
White pepper will be obtained by removing the outer skin (namely pericarp) and outer portion of the mesocarp of the ripe or matured green berries or dried black pepper (Piper nigrum L.). The white pepper berries are in light yellow greyish colour and nearly globular in shape. Size of pepper is around 5mm or less in diameter and looks like smooth, striated with small protuberance at the base.
Pepper into white pepper involves many methods like chemical, biological and physical methods for the conversion. Natural retting can be used to remove the skin and it requires long time from 7 to 15 days, steeping the pepper in stagnant or running waters. Major limitations of this retting process include quality deterioration of the product.
With the process developed by NIIST-CSIR, in 2 to 4 days, the hard outer skin is loosened using the general purpose "leach-bed anaerobic digestion". The in-situ microbial production of hydrolytic enzymes is responsible for the degradation of the skin. During the process pepper skin is degraded and breaks apart from the core. The best operational conditions for biological skin removal through the anaerobic process are in temperature between 30 to 37 C and neutral pH. Then pectin fermentation begins from the day one and completes on 2nd or 3rd in green pepper and 4th day in black pepper.
In the process of white pepper preparation volatile fatty acids (VFA) are generated from the degradation of pectin. This VFA is not accumulated in the system because of the growth of methanogens that convert the short chain fatty acids into methane and thus removed simultaneously.
The loosened and partially degraded skin is removed with the help of a fruit pulping machine and water washing. The decorticated pepper is sun dried or in a hot air drier adjusted at 450C to brings down the moisture content
