Hydration behaviour of food grains and modelling their moisture pick up as per Peleg's equation: Part II. Legumes.

Hydration behaviour of legumes with and without seed coat in split form at room temperature (28°C) was studied. Equilibrium moisture content (EMC) on soaking at room temperature of these legumes with seed coat varied from 53 to 65% (wb). Soybean hydrated fast while horse gram, black gram and green gram hydrated very slowly. Legumes in split form hydrated fast and completed their hydration in 3 h. EMC at room temperature varied from 52 to 58%. Peleg's equation could be fitted to the hydration of all legumes except green gram and horse gram. Coefficient of correlation for legume and splits (dhal) varied from 0.96 to 0.99, thus proving the validity of Peleg's equation. EMC of masur dhal fitted perfectly to the Peleg's equation. EMC predicted from average k1 and k2 values remained almost same in legume splits.