Fish Products and Byproducts Technology

Unit 12 - Seaweeds

12.6. Agar agar
Agar is used in food, confectionary and dairy industries as gelling, stabilizing and thickening agents mainly in the manufacture of sweets, jellies, and ice creams. Agar is also used in medicines. Fresh dried and processed seaweeds are utilized for human consumption. Food value of seaweeds depends on the mineral, trace elements, proteins and vitamin present in them.
Preparation
Gracillaria is used as a raw material for preparation of agar agar. Seaweed is blanched, and Cleaned by abrasion In a stone mortar to remove sand and other traces of foreign matter. Seaweeds are soaked in Soaked in 6-8 liters of soft water for 24 h and wet ground in stone mortar into pulp using soft water. The pulp is then leached in soft water of about 6-7 liters for a period of 24 h and separated by filtering with organdy cloth and extracted at 900 C in 3 liters of soft water for 1-2 h. Hot seaweeds are then filtered with 2-3 layer of cloth and sedimentation is carried out for suspended impurities in the solution. The agar solution is cooled at room temperature and shredding is carried out for agar gel. Sun dried gel strips on plastic netting can be known as agar agar.