Hello readers and prestigious fellow bloggers, here I'm again the infamous Gardner/ farmer, About a year ago I shared a post about Cassava harvest and Cassava flour making process which I analysed various steps on how to harvest cassava yam and making of some cassava flour but I was only able to highlight the process of cassava flour that could be made with the available resources we had at home.
If you go through my two previous post you would realise that I made mention of other farm products cassava yam could be blended with to arrive at different kind of delicacy but there was one in particular which is considered a meal for the populace of Nigeria most especially the Yoruba tribe. The name of this cassava flour is known as Garri. it is kind of popular around here.
You might be wondering why wait till now before disclosing this information, well all I could say is the opportunity presents itself. I never knew I would ever have the opportunity to write about this other category of cassava flower because the instrument and skill needed to produce it is mostly found in Garri factories and I'm not into that kind of large scale farming that involves making use of such machinery. The little cassava garden I have at home is just mostly used for consumption by the members of my family.
Just like I said earlier the opportunity presents itself, I'm currently undergoing my NYSC service in a remote area in OYO state, a community known as Atisbo. The primary occupation of people in this community is farming and as a lover of farming I blended in smoothly. Ever since I have gotten to this community I have been exploring different areas to make discovery of other kind of farming techniques I was not aware of, that was how I stumbled upon a factory in this community known as Garri factory through a CDS initiative by corp members.
This factory posses all kind of manually made machinery used in making all kinds of cassava flour including the one I will be talking about in this post. When I say manual I meant none of the machinery used in this factory uses electricity except from the grinding machine which is kind of amazing, they have shortage of power supply, instead of it becoming an hindrance for them they found ways to do things without power supply. Though majority of the workers are not really educated but when it comes to farming and cassava flour production they know all that is needed to be known about it. So as a farmer and a blogger I felt why not add this to my cassava flour making journal for the benefit of the readers and fellow farming lovers. Without wasting any more time, lets dive straight in.
GARRI {CASSAVA FLOUR} MAKING PROCESS.
The process of making this category of cassava flour looks similar to others but the final steps differs. In order to fully understand what the steps I will be highlighting in this post there is need for you to refer back to the previous post about cassava harvest. The steps of making Garri are listed below:
1. HARVESTING OF CASSAVA YAM.
After harvesting the cassava through the steps highlighted in my previous post The harvested cassava is then taken down to the Cassava flour factory.
2. PEELING OF CASSAVA YAM SKIN.
Peeling off the cassava yam skin is a simple process as long as you know your way around the knife, after harvesting a cassava yam, on the first few days it will still be soft before it starts to harden over time. Sliding your knife down the cassava yam body without cutting too deep is the best way to peel of the skin.
3. GRINDING OF CASSAVA WITH MACHINE.
After the cassava skin has been peeled off, it is then loaded into a sack and moved down to the machine where it will be grinded by the machine as shown above. As you can see the input is up while the output is down, just like any other typical machine used for grinding.
4. JACKING.
After grinding the cassava it will look watery, there is need to sieve out the water, so the grinded cassava is poured back into sack and taken to the jack. This drains out every bit of water in the cassava before it is moved to the next stage. According to the factory labourers, it usually takes 10 hours or sometimes less for the jack to completely drain out the water, the hours might increase depending on the weather.
5. FRYING THE GRINDED CASSAVA.
After the water is completely drained out by the jack, the grinded cassava is poured out of the sack on a flat surface where it is taken bit by bit into the large frying pan. It is just like frying egg but in this case the frying pan is bigger and there is no need for oil. The grinded cassava yam is spread out on the frying pan and it is shifted around in the frying pan until it is completely fried.
6. SIEVING.
After frying, it is poured out out of the frying pan and it is finally consumable but there are still some bigger particles of cassava in the cassava flour {Garri} that were not properly grinded which is why sieving is necessary, which is done to remove the large cassava particles from the cassava flour {Garri}. After the removal of the cassava particles then the cassava flour is loaded back into a sack for consumption.
You might wonder, what exactly can you do with the fried cassava particles removed from the cassava flour? Will I pour it away? the answer is No. Just like I said in my previous post everything about cassava is valuable.
The cassava particles will be sun-dried and taken back to the grinding machine to make a very smooth form of cassava flour called "LEBU" by the locals. It is also used to make African delicacy also known as "EBA" just like "Garri".
NOTE: Depending on the type of cassava flour you want to make determines the kind of machine that will be used in grinding it.
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