Detailed Explanation of Garlic Powder Processing Technology and Production Method
Main raw material: garlic.
Equipment and utensils: pulper, basin, filter, bamboo sieve, drying room or drying oven, grinder, fine sieve.
Production method: Select mature garlic that is disease-free, free of spotted rot, and free of wormholes, with cloves that are pure white in flesh color, free of mold, free of deterioration, and free of sprouting.
After selecting the garlic, rinse off the soil from the garlic heads with clean water, then break the garlic heads apart into cloves, soak them in cold water for about 1 hour, rub off the skin coating, scoop out the garlic cloves, and remove the spotted, diseased, and dirty miscellaneous cloves. The skin coating must be removed completely, and the remaining water drained off before crushing.
Put the washed, peeled, and drained garlic cloves into a pulper or into a grinder used for processing sweet potato starch to make a pulp. When pulping, add clean water equal to 1/3 of the weight of the garlic cloves, then filter the garlic pulp. Generally, coarse gauze is sufficient for filtering to remove residual skin coating and other impurities. Next, dehydrate the slurry liquid. The method may use fine cloth in rural areas to press out the water in the same way as pressing tofu; a hanging drip method used when making starch noodles may also be used. The water must be removed quickly in one go, without delay, to prevent the garlic paste from changing flavor and affecting quality. After dewatering, it should be dried immediately. That is, spread the dehydrated wet garlic powder flat on a bamboo sieve or drying tray, place it in a drying room, keep the temperature in the room at 50°C, and dry for 5 hours. When the wet garlic powder becomes dry powder (that is, it can be crushed into powder by hand), it is ready. When drying in a drying room, pay attention to discharging the moisture in the room from time to time to shorten the drying time. A drying oven may also be used.
While the dried garlic is still hot, use a dry grinder together with a fine sieve to grind and pulverize it, so that the dry powder is uniform and flour-like. The finished garlic powder must be submitted to the food hygiene management authorities for hygiene inspection. Only qualified products may be packaged and sold.
After inspection, product packaging can be divided into two types: dry garlic powder packaging and mixed seasoned garlic powder. Both products may be sold. Finished products should be protected from moisture, rain, rats, insects, and contamination.
Process flow: material selection → washing and peeling → garlic clove pulping → slurry dehydration → wet powder drying → dry powder grinding → inspection and packaging → finished product ready for sale.