| July 3 |
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About half of the Kansas wheat crop stays here and is used
in mills and bakeries. This is a diagram of a wheat kernel. The miller’s
(someone that makes flour from wheat) job is to separate the endosperm
from the rest of the kernel. The endosperm makes up about 83 percent of
the kernel, the bran is about 14 ½ percent, and the germ is 2 ½
percent of the kernel. There’s quite a process involved in milling
wheat and that’s what we’re going to do today and Wednesday. |
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Before the wheat can be milled it has to be cleaned. This
is the first step in a four- step cleaning process to prepare the wheat
grain for milling. This area is called the cleaning house and this
machine is called a receiving separator. It takes out materials based on
size that are larger and smaller than wheat. We can’t see it, but
there’s a large magnet that removes any metal pieces that might be in
the wheat. If you want to see the second step, click
here. |
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After the wheat has gone through the cleaning process it
needs to be tempered. That means water has to be added to the wheat to
raise the kernel moisture to 16 percent moisture. The wheat moves into
this area in the diagonal, lime-green tube and the instrument panel
controls how much water is being applied to the wheat. The wheat is
moved to the next area by a conveyor. |
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These are the tempering bins where the wet wheat will stay
for 16 to 24 hours to raise the kernel moisture before it is milled.
These bins are on the floor below the last procedure. This is a good
place to stop for today. We will get into milling next time. |
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