ABSTRACT
Konjac flour (gum) is an intermediate product that is a crude or refined product of glucomannan. Konjac flour processing is the basis and key to the use of konjac, and its quality is directly related to its application range, which includes food, medicine, chemical, textile, petroleum, and other industries. According to early sources, the most primitive konjac flour processing was invented by farmers in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. Nakajima Taniwa (1745–1826) cut the konjac tubers into thin slices, dried them, and then ground them into powder (coarse powder). Later on, a blower was installed on the grinder of the coarse powder to blow away the fine particles from the powder. Since the middle of the twentieth century, Japanese articles and patents concerning the processing of konjac flour have appeared and new processing equipment for konjac was successively launched to perform grinding and sifting operations. This equipment was originally developed for dry processing. In order to improve the quality of the konjac flour a ‘wet method’ (extraction of glucomannan from fresh konjac tubers through liquid media) was developed.
