Design, development and performance evaluation of chapati press cum vermicelli extruder.

Portable and manually operated chapati press cum vermicelli extruder device was designed and fabricated for the preparation of chapatis and vermicelli. Sensory evaluation overall quality scores of 50.15 and 48.4 for pressed chapatis and rolled chapatis respectively showed that quality of chapatis was not adversely affected as a result of mechanical pressing. The difference in chapati making time by manual rolling and machine pressing was 17 s per chapati and was statistically significant (p < 0.05). Combined machine produced more numbers of chapatis as machine press time per chapati was 12 s compared to 29 s of manual sheeting time. The observed variation in 1.5 mm thickness and 173.8 mm diameter from chapati to chapati was of the order of ± 0.1 mm and 1.93 mm respectively. Pressed chapati repeatability results indicated that there was no significant difference in diameters of the samples. Appearance quality characteristics scores of 8 and 7 for 2 mm and 3 mm diameter vermicelli respectively indicated smooth and uniform surface characteristics. Sensory evaluation of the cooked vermicelli indicated no significant difference (p > 0.05) between 2 mm and 3 mm diameter vermicelli. Cooked weight (72.8 g) and water absorption (191.2%) of 2 mm diameter vermicelli was more compared to 3 mm diameter vermicelli (51.75 g, 107%). This machine can also be used as a laboratory model as products of consistent thickness and diameter were obtained.