Fabrication and Performance Assessment of a Locally Developed Fish Smoking Kiln

Abstract

A study was conducted to fabricate a new smoking kiln to improve on the existing fish ‎smoking kiln technology and to determine its performance for recommendation for use. The ‎parameter used to determine the smoking efficiency included the loss in weight of the fish ‎samples, the temperature and the time it took to properly smoke the fish using charcoal as ‎smoking fuel. The smoking kiln was tested by using three different species of fish: Clarias sp., ‎Mormyrus spp. and Chrysichthys sp. under a period of one hour. It was discovered that it ‎performed perfectly well. Its advantages over all the already existing fish units are that it is faster ‎in efficiency producing well dried smoked fish of regular golden brown colour which lasted for ‎about six weeks even without spoiling. The fish processing itself took less than one hour. The ‎temperature of the heat supplied was quite higher than in the commonly used drum oven. The ‎smoking kiln on the average cost approximately N8,000 Nigeria money. It is a perfect substitute ‎for any of the already existing widely used technologies.‎