A multi-crop milk extractor was designed, constructed and evaluated for performance using soymilk and tigernut milk. The design analysis of the components provided the data that were used in the sizing, fabrication and assembling of the machine. The performance indicators considered were machine grind & strain rate (GSR), grind & strain capacity (GSC) and grind & strain efficiency (GSE). The GSR, were 10.1g/s and 13.57g/s on soybean and tigernut respectively, as compared to traditional method with GSR of 7.2 g/s and 9.6 g/s; GSC, were 18.91l/h and 24.94l/h on soybean and tigernut respectively, as compared with 13.7l/h and 17.95l/h for traditional method of extraction. The GSE, of the multi-crop machine were 89.8% and 85.86% for both soymilk and tigernut milk respectively. The straining efficiencies were 79.72% and 87.14% for soybean and tigernut respectively. In addition, the machine motor’s speed (at 900rpm, 1440 rpm and 1840rpm) showed a significant interaction with GST for both Soymilk (p<0.05) and tigernut milk (P< 0.05) extraction; but showed no significant interaction (P > 0.05) with the volume of milk produced for both soymilk and tigernut milk. The machine is simple to operate and maintain, therefore it is recommended for local food processors including micro, small and medium scale processing industries.
Keywords: Performance Evaluation, extracting machine, milk extractor, soymilk, tigernut milk
