Shellac is one of the common ingredient which every food technologist has heard of, right?
Whenever we talk about candies or gum-balls, or cake glazes, shellac is an ingredient which comes to our mind. Though there are many discussion regarding the suitability of shellac for vegetarian diet, it’s permitted by FSSAI to be used in fruit and vegetable wax coating as GMP ingredient.
Known as an amazing glazing agent, do you know that the lac bangles, popular in Indian culture are also made of same raw material as shellac?
Moreover, are you aware that India is the world’s largest producer of shellac and is responsible of approximately 50% of the world’s shellac supply?
So what’s exactly is this ingredient? What’s the difference in technology used? How do we obtain shellac and use it in multi-purpose application (from glazing confectionery to bangles)?
Well, all your questions will be answered here. Let’s take a deep dive into the unheard story of shellac.
The story of shellac starts from the forest of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh, which accounts for 60, 16 and 12% of total lac production in India respectively. Shellac is actually derived from the resins secreted by female lac bug, especially on the trees like kusum tree, palas tree, ber tree, sacred fig tree and acacia tree. When the female bugs suck the tree’s sap, they secrete the amber colored resin, known as sticklac which gets accumulated on the bark of the trees in the form a tunnel like structure as bug transverse through it.
![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c53df1_eb213e197f5645f98a261db2977103ca~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_651,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/c53df1_eb213e197f5645f98a261db2977103ca~mv2.jpg)
While extracting, the raw shellac contains bark shavings and lac bugs which are further processed for purification.
The raw shellac is then crushed and washed in the refinery to remove insects remains, twigs, leaves, red dye, etc. Washing is one of the most challenging step as excessive washing lowers the yield while less washing leads to inferior product. Once it’s perfectly washed, it undergoes sun-drying (for short time, 30-60 minutes) to prevent any mold growth. Post drying, it’s called seedlac as it resembles seeds.
Then comes the most interesting part of making shellac by traditional way. The seedlac is filled in a long tube of cloth.
![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c53df1_ef98b4b505fe40579a48f9a3a27ac245~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_980,h_339,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/c53df1_ef98b4b505fe40579a48f9a3a27ac245~mv2.png)
The cloth tube is spinned over the kiln so that the seedlac inside it melts. The molten shellac squeezes out of the cloth tube in a form of viscous resin, which is collected on a long rod and placed on flat surface to make small buttons like objects, given a name “Button Shellac”.
![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c53df1_29b6e547bbf04b359df1e8b3454562bc~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_980,h_523,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/c53df1_29b6e547bbf04b359df1e8b3454562bc~mv2.png)
These are used to make bangles. On the other hand, the viscous resin is spread over a long tube as well with the help of palm leaves, making a thick sheet. Once cooled, the sheet is taken from it and stretched manually to form a thin sheet of shellac.
![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c53df1_5ce240f87fd9441aa6073689d9322548~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_980,h_637,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/c53df1_5ce240f87fd9441aa6073689d9322548~mv2.png)
![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c53df1_ce78f59314fc46f5b7e756d1caec130b~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_980,h_483,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/c53df1_ce78f59314fc46f5b7e756d1caec130b~mv2.png)
After industrialization, majority of the processes have replaced human intervention. Sifter and destoners separate the debris from sticklac. The seedlac is melted on steam-heated grids, where hydraulic pressure is used to force molten seedlac through fine cloth / sieve. The molten resin is passed through roller which stretches it to a very thin sheet, eliminating the traditional hand-stretching method. These sheets are then cooled and crushed into flakes which are further combined with denatured alcohol to make it ready-to use by consumer.
![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c53df1_5cc94ed806494b1daf22b00d4c4192bd~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_980,h_164,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/c53df1_5cc94ed806494b1daf22b00d4c4192bd~mv2.png)
Apart from melting, there is an another way to make shellac, using solvent. In this method, seedlac and ethyl alcohol are mixed, refluxed for an hour or so, and then filtered to remove impurities. The filtered mixture is passed through the evaporator which vaporize alcohol and thickens the mixture, making it a viscous-resin. This resin is passed through roller to make thin sheets and flakes.
Generally, obtained shellac flakes are orange in color as the red dye in sticklac is partly removed during the cleaning process. If the colorless shellac is required, the bleaching is carried out to remove the orange shade. For bleached shellac, the seedlac is dissolved in aqueous solution of sodium carbonate, followed by sieving to remove impurities. The resins are then bleached with diluted sodium hypochlorite, and precipitated from solution by using dil. sulphuric acid. The precipitate is then filtered and washed with water, dried in vacuum and ground into powder to make colored shellac.
That’s how the glazing agent Shellac is produced or popular lac bangles are produced.
Do you know why is it called lac?
To make 1 kilogram of shellac, it took around 1,00,000 of insects, which justifies its name as “Lac” (Hindi term for 1 Lakh).
Processing shellac is not an easy task. Harvesting it by cutting tree branches and scrapping the sticklac from branches is not only laborious process but also has risk of falling from trees / cutting hands / bruises, etc. Processing is indeed critical in obtaining the right quality. So next time you buy lac bangles or consume glazed confectionery, do remember the hard work of people behind it.
That’s all about the versatile ingredient, Shellac.
References:
Comments