Cooking Characteristics and Sensory Qualities of Decorticated Finger Millet (Eleusine coracana)

This study examines the cooking characteristics and sensory attributes of decorticated finger millet. Decorticated millet is one of the unique products from finger millet, which can be cooked to discrete grains similar to rice. The cooking qualities of decorticated millet, namely cooking time, soluble loss, and pasting profile, were studied. It was observed that decorticated millet cooks to soft textured grains within 6 min. The moisture content of the cooked grains was 71 g/100 g with a total soluble loss of 3.5 g/100 g. Exposing the cooked millet to atmosphere increased its redness value by 39%. The gelatinization temperature of the decorticated millet was 68°C and its paste showed no breakdown in the viscosity. The hardness of the cooked millet was 0.63N indicating its soft texture. The sensory analysis of the product corroborated with the instrumental results with an overall acceptability score of 8.