Destalking of dry red chillies (Capsicum annum L.) and its characterization

The prevalent manual destalking of dried red chillies is a labour-intensive, tedious, and unhealthy practice that can cause severe health ailments to the labourers. This study focuses on the design and fabrication of a mechanized system for removing stalks from dried chillies to reduce the drudgery involved in manual operation. The machine's primary components including hopper, rotating cylinder, triangular bridges, cutting blades, destalked chilli outlet, and stalk outlet were fabricated based on the design considerations and ease of operation. The machine was evaluated considering the independent parameters viz. feed rate, cylinder speed, and cylinder inclination for optimization of its performance using one-factor-at-a-time statistical design. Physical properties of chillies, destalking efficiency of the machine, and the effect of destalking on powder characteristics were determined. Optimal performance of the machine was achieved with the chillies having 8-10% (moisture), 6.5 kg/h (feed rate), 20 rpm (cylinder's speed), and 3° (cylinder's inclination) with destalking efficiency of 85-87%. The evaluation of powder characteristics also revealed the prominence of destalking with enhanced colour attributes. The developed machine is compact, efficient, economical, requires less labour and thereby it may encourage its adoption at the farmer's level and strengthening of the value chain of dried chillies.