Abstract

George Davison, Victor Sebastian and Lebechi Linda

The design and construction of fish smoking kiln was undertaken with the aim of improving the existing fish smoking kiln. The kiln consists of metal frame made of angle iron on which the entire component was assembled. The handle controls the speed of the ventilation fan through chain and sprocket. The charcoal housing is made of perforated metal sheet to allow for proper ventilation. The kiln is operated manually by turning the handle which drives the fan to augment natural ventilation. The machine performance was evaluated using fish samples (African mud Fish) smoked to an average moisture content of 11.46% within an average time span of 5 h, and the average final weight of the dried fish was 0.9827 Kg. It was found that the fish can be kept for at least two months before showing the sign of spoilage.