초록
There are more than three hundred garlic peeling facilities in Korea and most of them use pressurized air for skin peeling operation. One of the major problems of using air for the peeling operation is the occurrence of excessive bruises on the flesh of peeled garlic which causes easy microbial contamination and shortening of the shelf lift. To reduce the occurrence of bruises during the peeling operation, a new type of garlic peeling system was developed which use pressurized water. In this system, high pressure water jets were used to separate garlic bulbs and to peel the skin of garlic cloves. Six commercial systems of this type had been developed and installed at several locations in Korea. The design and performance of the latest system according to three pressure levels were described in this paper. Peeling efficiency of the system was as high as $64.7\%$ in one cycle of peeling operation by three chambers installed in series. Incorporation of a sorting system based on machine vision and re-circulation of unpeeled and partially-peeled garlic enhanced peeling efficiency by additional $30\%$, resulting in total peeling efficiency of the final products of approximately $95\%$. Peeling capacity of the system was over 400 kg per hour.
