Studies on development of kneader and ball former for chhana in rasogolla production: Part III: Quality parameters of rasogolla

Rasogolla is the most popular Indian dairy sweet has crossed its boundary of Eastern India and its fame rapidly spreading in abroad also. Generally rasogolla is prepared from chhana obtained from cow’s milk. For production of rasogolla, chhana is thoroughly kneaded and made into small balls, which are subsequently boiled in clarified sugar syrup followed by slow cooling in comparatively low concentration sugar syrup. Rasogolla’s projected demand is 6000 tonnes in 2009. Traditionally chhana kneading and ball forming was done manually. In order to meet ever-growing demand, its production must be mechanized. An attempt was made to develop a chhana kneader and ball former as presented in Part I and II.Chhana was kneaded in the developed kneader at a peripheral speed of 93.46 cm/s and chhana ball was made in the developed ball former for the preparation of rasogolla under the following operating conditions: 200 and 250 strokes/min 5 and 10 cm stroke length, 0 and 5% slope in stainless steel (SS) plain, SS perforated and acrylic sheet as ball forming surfaces. The performance of the developed machine was evaluated in terms of porosity, percentage of absorbed sugar syrup, expressible juice, volume expansion and overall acceptability of rasogolla. Better quality rasogolla was obtained at 200 strokes/min, 5 cm stroke length in SS plain surface with 0% slope.