Cooking softens the sericin binding the filament so it will unwind without breaking. Under-cook and the filament snaps; over-cook and both the sericin and the fibroin suffer. Muga is harder to cook than mulberry, and improving the recipe has been one of the institute’s most productive lines of work.
Standardised recipes
| Process | Standardised recipe |
|---|---|
| Muga cocoon cooking (laboratory) | Boil in water with 2.0–2.5 g/L sodium carbonate at a material-to-liquor ratio of 1 : 20 for 15–20 minutes at 95 °C, turning with a ladle. SILKPLUS, developed at CMER&TI, improves cooking and reeling efficiency. |
| Muga cocoon cooking (field practice) | 100 cocoons to 2 L water with muga super cook chemical at 2 g/L; boil, immerse 5–8 minutes depending on shell compactness and stock age; remove floss to find the ends. |
| Eri cocoon degumming | Cocoon : water 1 : 1.5 (1.5 L per 100 g), 10–15 % sodium carbonate, boiling, 30–45 minutes, cocoons tied in soft cloth. |
Recovery. Cooked muga cocoons yield raw silk equal to about
40–45 % of shell weight, rising to around 50 % with SILKPLUS — subject to
cocoon quality.
SILKPLUS and Muga Super Cook
| Formulation | Year | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Muga Silk Plus | 2009 | Water-soluble chemical formulation for a simple cocoon cooking process, raising silk recovery to 50–55 % against 40–48 % by the traditional method, and improving the reeled yarn. |
| Muga Super Cook | 2024 | Reduces reeling breaks by 24–30 %, raises non-broken filament length by about 16 %, reelability by about 15 % and raw silk recovery by about 10 %, while cutting cooking time from 10–15 minutes to 3–5 minutes. The cooking liquor can be reused two to three times, and tensile strength and natural lustre are retained. Licensed to Aicheng Innovation Pvt. Ltd, Sivasagar. |