Tapioca Starch Properties Quality Assurance 1. Concept of Quality Assurance and Components

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3. Tapioca Starch Properties

Tapioca is an important raw material for various kinds of industries, e.g., food, textile, paper, adhesive industry, dextrin industry and sweetener industry. Such industries require a certain chemical property andor physical property for their manufacturing processing and final products. The properties of tapioca starch are well known as color and appearance, acidity or pH, flow property, size and shape of granules amylase content, gelatinization temperature, viscosity, swelling power and solubility, and sol stability. Coinciding with such properties, tapioca flour has been using for manufacturing high fructose syrup in USA and European countries Tjokroadikoesoemo, 1985. Considering the quality of tapioca, the important properties are 1 color and appearance, 2 acidity or pH, and 3 viscosity in comparison with the items mentioned in Quality Standard of Indonesia Tapioca Flour: SNI 01-3451-1994. 1 Color and appearance : When cassava is processed properly, Aci and tapioca flour are very white in color. When tuber is smashed without removing the skin rind, there is a dullness in the color. The reduction in whiteness not only affects the quality but also the price. In Case of sago manufacture, the flour obtained by using the starch extracted after removing the rind possess a greater whiteness. 2 Acidity or pH: Normal pH of cassava tuber is 6.3 to 6.5 and the starch slurry also exhibits a similar value. The specifications vary for the pH, but SNI allows an acidity maximum range of 3.0ml 1N NaOH per 100g. 3 Viscosity: A viscosity is another important property of starch solutions, which makes if useful in many industries, e.g., the role of starch as thickener in food industries, and as a sizing and finishing agent in textile and paper industries. When an aqueous concentrated suspension of starch is heated above its gelatinization temperature, the individual granules, gelatinize and swell rapidly and freely until they consume almost all the available water. In case of SNI, it presents “Engler” coefficient with the range of 2.6 to 4.0 for the first quality of tapioca, 2.5 to 3.0 for the second quality, and less than 2.5 for the third quality. 17

D. Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises UMKM