Method and a system for producing extruded edible ice products

A method and system for producing extruded edible ice products wherein an extruded string is conveyed unbroken through a continuous freezing zone, with only constrictions or notches being provided in the string by transversely movable tools while the ice substance is still formable. After a hard freezing of the extruded string, single bodies are separated from the extruded string by a simple successive breaking action on a front end of the string, and a desired distance between individual severed bodies can be produced by permitting the bodies to fall onto a conveyor moving at a speed which is higher than a conveying speed of the extruded string.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
The present invention relates to a method of producing extruded edible ice 
products, typically round bar shaped ice bodies optionally coated with 
chocolate or another material. That kind of simple bodies are well suited 
to be manufactured by extrusion, as they can just be cut off in desired 
lengths from an extruded string of frozen ice material. 
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
By extrusion, ice substance is soft and formable, e.g. at a temperature of 
-5.degree., and, for ensuring a real separation between the extruded 
bodies by the cutting of the extruded string, the extruded string should 
be further frozen before the cutting takes place. It is a usual practice, 
therefore, that an ice sausage string, or preferably a number of parallel 
ice strings, be extruded onto a conveyor belt which brings the string 
through a first freezing zone, in which the ice material is frozen to a 
`medium low` temperature by which the material is reasonably stiff or self 
carrying, yet still easily cuttable, whereafter the string is conveyed 
through a cutting station for being cut into single bodies, which, on the 
same or a further conveyor, are brought through a following freezing zone 
in which they are hard frozen. Such a final freezing will often be 
effected in a special freezing store after packaging or wrapping of the 
bodies, but if the bodies prior to the packing should be coated with some 
coating material from a liquid state thereof, then the bodies should be 
hard frozen prior to such coating being effected, e.g. by dipping of the 
bodies in a bath of the coating material, as this material will be `warm` 
relative to the ice material. Particularly where it is required for this 
reason to hard freeze the bodies prior to a possible packaging or wrapping 
and thus prior to their transfer to a freezing store the basically simple 
extrusion process will be less simple, because normally use should be made 
of two different freezing tunnel units and an intermediate cutting 
station. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
The aim underlying the present invention essentially resides in providing a 
method and apparatus which simplifies the production of extruded edible 
ice products, with advantage being taken of the special character of the 
ice material in a hard frozen condition. 
According to the present invention, the ice sausage or string, while being 
in a medium frozen condition, is subjected to a pressure shaping for 
forming successive breaking curbs by a simple pressing in of a curb 
forming tool into a top side of the sausage or string, whereafter the 
still coherent sausage is conveyed further through a hard freezing zone. 
At the exit of the hard freezing zone, the single ice bodies are broken 
off from the sausage or string and are entirely frozen or stiff. By a 
completely uncritical breaking influence, the sausage or string will break 
just at a previously shaped curb recess and, no precautions are necessary 
for avoiding a rejoining between the ends of the previously coherent body 
since such rejoining will be excluded due to the fully frozen condition of 
the material. 
The adding of a breaking curb can be effected in a very simple manner 
inside a continuous freezing tunnel, in which the conveyor belt may pass 
in one stretch, inasfar as the curb can be shaped by a simple pressing 
down of a tool, which shall only have to intrude noticeably into the top 
side of the ice sausage, but not cause any severing of the sausage all the 
way down to the top side of the conveyor belt, this otherwise being a 
major problem. Thus, for the entire process it is sufficient to use a 
single tunnel and a single, continuous conveyor belt, which amounts to a 
considerable simplification of the conventional technique. 
The invention is, exemplified on the accompanying drawing, which shows, 
inter alia, that the breaking off of the ice bodies may be affected in an 
extremely simple manner in that the front end of the hard frozen ice 
sausage at an exit area from a supporting anvil meets with an overlying 
roller serving to force the projecting front end of the ice sausage 
downwardly, such that the front end portion will break off without 
difficulties just at the previously shaped curb. The broken off front end 
portions or ice bodies may fall down onto a further conveyor belt bringing 
them further to a wrapping machine or to a station in which they are 
provided with a coating material. 
As a further important advantage it will be achieved that each one of the 
extruded bodies will be stabilized on the conveyor belt in and by the 
bodies being lengthwise coherent. Even entirely round bodies may then 
remain rested on the belt when on their way they are exposed to local 
vibrations on the belt. 
The fracture surfaces appearing after the breaking off of the bodies will 
reveal themselves only as rather small areas at the ends of the elongated 
bodies, i.e. they will be quite discrete and will practically disappear by 
a following coating of the bodies. Following the invention is described in 
more detail with reference to the drawing, in which:

DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
In FIG. 1 is shown a conveyor 2, above the left hand end of which there is 
mounted a slightly inclined extruder tube 4, which receives an ice 
material through a hose 5 and extrudes the material in a string 6 carried 
forwardly by the conveyor belt. Normally there will be arranged a 
plurality of extruder or nozzle tubes 4 in a transverse row across a 
suitably broad conveyor. 
On the conveyor the string 6 is carried through a freezing zone marked by 
vertical arrows f that may represent a blast of cold air. Inside the 
freezing zone there is mounted above each string 6--or transversely above 
all of the strings--a vertical blade 8, which, e.g. by a working cylinder 
10, is depressable into the ice material, which at the particular place 
has been cooled down sufficiently to allow for the depression of the blade 
8 to create a permanent or area of construction curb 12 in the material. 
The curbs 10 are shaped during the passing by of the string, with mutual 
spacings corresponding to the desired length of the finished products, and 
the strings are thereafter moved further forwardly in the freezing zone 
until they have become hard frozen. 
At the delivery end of of the conveyor the strings 6 pass onto an anvil 14, 
which as also shown in FIG. 2 is mounted just outside the associated end 
roller of the conveyor flush with the top side of the conveyor belt. When 
the end of the string 6 has passed from the rear edge of the anvil a 
distance corresponding to the length of a product body P' the top side of 
the string 6 will meet a stationary, rotating roller 16, the bottom of 
which is located at a level slightly lower than the top side of the 
string, and the foremost product body P', therefore, will be pressed down 
so as to break off in the area beneath the foremost curb 12. 
The body P thus broken off falls to an underlying conveyor belt 18, which 
is moved somewhat faster than the string 6, such that a desired distance 
will be produced between the consecutive bodies P. These bodies P are then 
advanced for further treatment or packaging. 
In FIG. 3 it is indicated that instead of a narrow blade 8 it is possible 
to use shaping tools 20 that will form a portion of the body ends with a 
desired shape. As shown, an approximate rounded shape can be achieved by 
pressing such tools inwardly from both sides. 
It has been mentioned that that the strings 6 should be noticeably cooled 
down prior to the curbs or areas of constriction 12 being shaped, but it 
is possible, nevertheless, to carry out such shaping already at the outlet 
from the extruder tube 4, particularly if the ice material has at this 
place been cooled down a little more than usually or if the material is 
otherwise, due to its composition, suited for such shaping; the material 
is not bound to be just an edible icecream substance. Also, a further 
possibility will be to shape the product body ends, while coherent, by a 
controlled extruder nozzle 22, e.g. a nozzle comprising an iris diaphragm 
or one or more wall or edge portions which may be displaced in a 
controllable manner for narrowing or widening the nozzle opening at 
desired portions thereof, particularly at the top and/or the sides of the 
string. When suitably controlled, e.g. through the illustrated control 
conduit 24, the nozzle will then be usable for shaping the front and rear 
ends of the product bodies with varying or mutually different shapes, just 
as the bodies can be produced with other cross profiles, only less deep 
than the curbs or means of constrictions 12. Also, the product bodies may 
then be shaped fully or partially conically.