Shelling is a fundamental unit operation during oil extraction of snake gourd seed oil. Lack of proper and efficient method of shelling the seed has been identifying as a major problem in the production and utilization of snake gourd seed oil. Currently manual method is popular which is cumbersome, time consuming and not efficient for the process. Seed pretreatment is required prior to shelling operation for some crops like snake gourd. Effect of hydrothermal pretreatment was evaluated on the shelling efficiency, percentage unshelled and percentage broken of the seed. The evaluations were done using a 2 by 3 by 5 factorial experiment. The two factors and their levels are soaking time (10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 minutes) and seed drying temperature (60, 70, 80, 90, and 100 °C). The result of the experiment shows that the highest shelling efficiency of was achieved when the wetting time was 60 minutes and the seed drying temperature was 100 °C while the least efficiency () was recorded when the wetting time was 10 minutes and seed drying temperature was 60°C. The highest percentage unshelled () was recoded at 10 minutes soaking time and 60°C seed drying temperature. It was observed that the broken percentage decreased from to as the drying temperature decrease from 100 to 60°C. In conclusion, it was observed that the higher the soaking time and drying temperature the higher the shelling efficiency and the lower the unshell percentage. | Effect of hydrothermal pre-treatment on snake gourd seed shelling
