Cereal Extrusion Processing

Breakfast cereal manufacturing was one of the earliest commercial applications of extrusion cooking and remains one of the most widespread.

The application of extrusion technology is one of the most economic processes, being used increasingly in the food industry for the development of new products such as breakfast cereals and modified starch from cereals.

Cereals flour and other starchy materials are widely used as raw materials in the production of many extruded product. The physical of cereals fluids developed within an extruder and their extrudates are predominantly due to the starch component present, which usually represents between 50% and 80% of the dry solids.

The extrusion-cooking unit thermo-mechanically cooks breakfast cereal mixes to generate the right functional properties of the resulting melt according to the quality profile of the final products.

Chemical and structural transformation in foods during extrusion cooking determine the quality of the extruded products.

A few studies have been reported in extrusion cooking increased the availability of protein and other nutrients in the grain.

Extrusions processes are typically high temperature and high pressure for short time durations. This results in products with limited heat treatments that have nearly all the nutritional attributes of the raw materials remaining in the final products.
Cereal Extrusion Processing