Today's extruded snack processor must balance market flexibility with plant optimisation, safety and profitability, and needs appropriate instrumentation to do so
Salt and vinegar on Monday, cheese puffs on Wednesday, and tortillas on Saturday.
Today's extruded snack processor must balance market flexibility with plant optimisation, safety and profitability.
Endress+Hauser instruments will push the plant performance levels to the optimum and help meet the stringent demands of any HACCP system.
Raw materials arrive at the plant in bulk and bagged format and from them the individual mixes of maize grits, potato or semolina are made.
Any silos filled pneumatically with floury dusty products are in danger of over pressurisation and possible risk of splitting.
The new Endress + Hauser LevelFlex FMP 40 guided radar used in conjunction with a Cerabar M PMP 40 food grade pressure sensor will monitor bin levels to 35 meters and pressures to 40bar and close down filling systems and shut valves if dangerous levels are achieved, even during filling.
The flow of compressed air used to pneumatically convey the products can be measured and controlled using a T-mass thermal flow meter or filters monitored and leaks detected using a value for money Endress + Hauser gas flow T-Switch.
Once the snack leaves the washers, peelers and extruders it is blown along flexible pipes in to storage hoppers for each line and from there fed in to the drying ovens.
Accurate temperature zone control in the driers is achieved using a series of Omnigrad M TR 44 sensors outputted to a data secure Memo-Graph S recorder (FDA 21 CFR 11 compliant).
The temperature and feed rate data can be used to give the best drying times for each product type and prevent over cooking.
From the triple deck ovens, the snacks go in to the flavour dosing system which for many crisps, scratchings or corn puffs is a vegetable oil slurry.
The powder flavours are either pre weighed or continuously weighed and mixed with a fixed volume of oil and pumped under pressure to the flavour drums.
Endress + Hauser stainless Promass 80 mass flow coriolis meters will ratio the raw oil and dose the slurries in the product tumblers accurately from 1kg/hr to 350 tonnes per hour at flow rates up to 10 meters per second at high temperatures of up to 200C.
The correct flavour mix ensures the right snack taste at this point and the Promass flow meter will not just provide Mass and volume dose control but density and temperature functions at this crucial point in the process.
The excess hot slurry flows out of the tumblers in to reservoirs and waste tanks for removal and recycling.
Endress Liquiphant M FTL 50 vibrating fork level switches are immune to oily product build up and can prevent any messy and costly overfills and spills.
From the flavour drums, product goes straight up a bucket elevator and on to the distribution system to feed the multihead weighers and packers and on to the supermarkets.
Endress+Hauser has the widest range of level, pressure, flow and analytical instrumentation for the food industry, all designed to meet FDA, EHEDG and 3A standards. Our food industry sensors and transmitters are manufactured in stainless steel and are available with sanitary and Triclamp process connections.
