Corn Milling

 Corn (Maize) is one of the most versatile emerging
crops having wider adaptability under varied agro-

climatic conditions. Globally, maize is known as the
queen of cereals because it has the highest genetic
yield potential among the cereals.
 Its botanical name is Zea mays
 As a cereal, maize is used as ingredient in food
preparation; it is feed for poultry and livestock; it is
feedstock for bio-fuel (ethanol); it is used as raw
material in distilleries; and for starch production
because of its high starch content.
 The products of milling include maize grits, meal,
flour, and protein and corn steep liquor. Corn is
consumed as human food in many forms.
 Dent varieties, which, when mature have a
pronounced depression or dent at the top of
the kernel. These have hard patches of
densely packed endosperm cells at the
outer edges of their endosperm and soft,
opaque cells toward their center. Their
shapes vary from long and narrow to wide
and shallow.
 Flint varieties, which have a continuous hard
layer surrounding the endosperm. When
these kernels dry, they dry evenly and
therefore do not form a dent. It has starchy
endosperm enclosed with hard horny
endosperm. Kernel size is large with flat
bottom and round at top, colour may be
white or yellow.
 Flour or soft varieties, which are almost
entirely opaque and soft. It is the soft maize
varieties that are normally used to make
corn flour.
 Waxy maize: waxy appearance especially when broken. The
starch consists of very little amylose and is effectively
100% amylopectin (maize starch is normally about
30% amylose and 70% amylopectin). As amylopectin is high,
that’s which these types of corn have waxy appearance and
gummy starch in them. Starch obtained from waxy corn is
similar to tapioca. it is grown to make special starches for
thickening of foods and also for adhesives.
Maize is processed by two methods:
 Dry Milling
 Wet milling
 Maize is processed by dry or wet milling. Dry milling

may or may not include de-germing as a preliminary
step. Non-de-germing dry milling is carried out on a
local basis in small grist mills or in modern roller
mills using sifters and purifiers. The maize is ground
to make coarse wholemeal of 85-95% extraction rate.
This wholemeal is highly susceptible to the rancidity
as the germ is retained which has a high oil content.
Wet milling and dry milling involving de-germing are
carried out in large commercial mills.
 Two different systems are used for dry milling of corn.
 The non-degerming system grinds corn into mill with
hardly any separation of germ. This corn meal has
comparatively shorter shelflife, as the germ is retained,
which contains 32-35% oil. This oil in presence of oxygen
and lipolytic enzymes is prone to oxidative and hydrolytic
rancidity.
 Hence, it is necessary to remove the germ from corn to
produce corn products with much lower fat content and
greater shelf-life.
 Tempering and degerming system remove most of the
germ and hull and leave the endosperm as free of oil and
fiber as possible to recover maximum yield of endosperm
and germ as large clean particles.
 Corn is cleaned to remove dirt, stones, insects, tramp iron,
broken kernels and extraneous plant materials.
 The corn is then conditioned by adding water to increase the
moisture content to 20%, and the moistened corn is allowed to
equilibrate for 1 3 hrs. The objective of conditioning is to
loosen the germ and toughen the bran and to mellow the
endosperm so as to obtain a maximum yield of grits and a
minimum yield of flour in the subsequent milling.
 Degerming and dehulling is carried out in one of the three ways:
 1. Beall de-germinator (De-germer and corn huller)
 2. With roller mills and sifters
 3. With impact machines such as entoleters and gravity
separators
 Once the germ and hull are removed, the endosperm is reduced
in size to grits with roller mills. A complex array of additional
roller mills and particle size separating equipments is used to
purify and size endosperm particles. All products must be dried
prior to packaging or bulk storage.
 Wet milling of corn is achieved by a combination of
chemical and mechanical means. Wet milling begins
with steeping of cleaned corn for 30-48 hours with
water. Sulfur dioxide is added to the water at the rate
of 0.1-0.2% and the solution is heated to about 50˚C.
This condition prevents growth of putrefying
microorganisms.
 During steeping, the kernel absorb solution and
swell, activating enzymes native to the kernel to
assist in breaking down the structure;
the bisulfite ion reduces disulfide bonds in the
protein matrix, increasing protein solubility and
diminishing interactions between starch and protein;
the lactic acid and/or exogenous enzymes produced
by the lactobacilli help soften the endosperm.
 After steeping corn is ready for grinding and fractionating
in disc attrition mill. The ground slurry is then pumped
to hydroclones (liquid cyclones) to separate lighter-weight
germs. The germs are dried and processed for oil and
meal. The heavier underflow from the hydroclones is
screened, and larger particles are finely reground with an
impact mill to free the starch, protein, and fiber from each
other.
 Fiber is separated and washed over series of screens.
 The remaining stream of starch and protein is passed
through disc nozzle type centrifuges, where heavier starch
is separated from the gluten.
 The gluten is dewatered using additional centrifuges and
vacuum filters. The remaining starch slurry is washed and
passed through hydroclones. Centrifuges and/or vacuum
filter dewater the purified starch.
1. Degerminated flour:
 This represents about 70 per cent extraction.
 The degerminated flour consists mostly of the endosperm and has
low content of B-vitamins.
 It is used by brewers as a starch medium for the action of barley
malt in the preparation of wort for the production of beer.
2. Germ:
 Corn-germ contains about 21 .0 per cent proteins and 32 per cent
fat. Since the germ constitutes about 13 per cent of the grain, it is
an important source of proteins and fat.
 The oil can be extracted by solvent extraction and the residual
protein-rich (about 30 per cent protein) corn germ flour can be
incorporated in weaning foods.

Corn Milling

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 Corn (Maize) is one of the most versatile emerging

crops having wider adaptability under varied agro-

 Maize is processed by dry or wet milling. Dry milling

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