Comparative Evaluation of Soaking Characteristics of Chickpea using Ambient water, Hot water and Microwave-assisted Heating

Aims: Soaking followed by cooking is the main aspect of chickpea processing which reduces the time consumption in the cooking process for achieving the desired cooking texture and nutritional qualities. But soaking chickpea in ambient water is very time-consuming. Therefore, the present investigation was carried out to study the soaking characteristics of chickpea in different soaking conditions. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Agricultural Engineering, Centurion University of Technology & Management, between January 2021 to June 2021. Methodology: The chickpea was soaked in ambient water, hot water, and microwave heating applications. Results: The initial moisture content of the chickpea was found to be 14.39 % wet basis throughout the experiments. The moisture gain experimental was calculated and was found to be 45.21 % dry basis (db) in ambient water soaking. In the hot water soaking, the moisture gain was estimated to be 50.74 % db, 53.28 % db, and 65.18 % db at 40°C, 50°C, and 60°C, respectively after 360 min (6h) of soaking period. The moisture gains in microwave-assisted soaking at 0.2 W/g, 0.4 W/g, 0.6 W/g, 0.8 W/g, and 1.0 W/g power densities levels were found to be 44.78 % db, 64.44 % db, 81.42 % db, 106.36 % db, and 115.95 % db, respectively after 10 min. The Peleg model was found to be suitable for describing the soaking characteristics of chickpea at all soaking conditions with higher R2 values. The Peleg capacity constant and rate constant didn’t show any particular trend in all the soaking methods. Conclusion: Among all the soaking methods, microwave-assisted soaking showed the best soaking characteristics of chickpea with less time consumption and with more amount of moisture gain. Therefore, microwave-assisted may be recommended for soaking chickpea which is a less time-consuming and energy-saving process.