Food extruder machine

Abstract: A food extruder machine comprising in combination a molding barrel having several axial holes in a circumferential direction for passing a major material and a core to be fitted in or out of to each other; a die head having a fine narrow die hole oppositely arranged against a cone part at an extreme end of the core through an annular clearance; and a sub-material supplying means connected to the annular clearance so as to supply a molten sub-material for collecting and binding to a major thread-like material extruded from an axial hole and passing through it.

Description: This invention relates to a food extruder assembly for use in molding and processing a food such as a crab stick having fibrous tissue, for example. As a technology for applying a pressure and a temperature to a fish meat or a plant protein with a screw type extruder, melting them, rearranging them in fibrous fine tissue arranged in one row and cooling them through their extrusion so as to make a final thread-like food, as shown in Figs.3 and 4, there is present an extruder machine. This prior art may manufacture a crab stick, wherein a molten material extruded from an extruder 19 having a barrel and a screw is formed into a sheet-like shape while cooling it with a sheet die 35, the sheet material 36 is longitudinally cut into some thread-like elements with a multi-grooved disk cutter 38 or the sheet is formed with some slits. The formed material is further enclosed with a kneaded product; packaged with a wrapping film, bound with a stripe, and then steam boiled to make a final product. In case of the aforesaid prior art, its facility becomes comlicated and expensive due to the fact that it requires a sheet manufacturing step, a sheet transporting step, a sheet cutting step, various independent steps and some devices in a process starting from its molten material to a produced thread-like material. In addition, in case that the material is formed into a sheet element 36 through a sheet die 35, it is not possible to make a large-sized sheet due to a certain limitation in a width size and at the same time a certain irregular quality may be generated at both lateral ends and a central part of the sheet member 36. In addition, the thread-like product is enclosed with the kneaded material after its binding state, resulting in that a casing of fish pasted product is formed to cause a bad taste and a poor outer appearance as an imitation food. In case of the prior art, one extruder device 19 is required for one sheet die 35. This is due to the fact that a supplying of molten material from one extruder to a plurality of sheet dies having different distances causes a poor flow of material to be attained at the sheet die far spaced apart from the extruder and finally a non-uniform quality of the product is attained. Due to this fact, a mass production of the sheet material is difficult. A food extruder assembly comprising the features of the pre-characterizing clause of claim 1 is known from US-A-3 213 808. The axial passages of the food extruder of the known food extruder assembly are each formed within one tube of a plurality of tubes. These tubes open into a space formed within the conical end of the core. The conical end of the core opens into the die head. The tubes of the plurality of tubes are bent and have different lengths. It is an object of the present invention to improve the known food extruder assembly such that a high quality and highly uniform product composed of the main-material and the sub-material can be manufactured. This object is achieved by the food extruder assembly according to claim 1. Further developments of the food extruder assembly according to the invention are defined by the subclaims. An embodiment of the invention will be described with reference to the drawings. Figs.1 and 2 illustrate one preferred embodiment of the present invention, wherein Fig.1 is an entire side sectional view in section and Fig.2 is an enlarged side elevational view in section. Figs.3 and 4 are a top plan view and a side elevational view for showing a prior art assembly, respectively. Referring now to the drawings, a preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described. In Figs.1 and 2, a food extruder assembly 1 is composed of a plurality of food extruders A arranged in a circle and one extruding unit B for use in supplying a main-material to all the food extruders A. At the food extruders A, reference numeral 2 denotes a cylindrical molding barrel, a cold water passage 3 is formed within its cylindrical wall so as to form a cooling jacket structure. A supporting block 4 and a fixing block 5 are fixed or integrally molded across the molding barrel 2, and a core 6 is arranged to pass through these units. The core 6 is formed with several circumferential axial grooves at its outer circumferential surface, contacted with an inner circumferential surface 2a of the fitted molding barrel 2 and forms axial passages 7. Each axial passage 7 has a substantial rectangular or circular shape in section, and these passages are also formed between the barrel 2 and the fixing block 5. An extreme end of the core 6 is formed with a conical end 8 and then a die head 10 having a narrow die hole 9 is arranged in opposition to the conical end 8. The die head 10 is fixed to a die holder 11 fixed to the supporting block 4. The die hole 9 has a conical hole 9a and a linear hole 9b. The linear hole 9b has a sectional shape corresponding to a shape of the final product. An annular clearance 12 defined by the conical end 8 and the supporting block 4 is formed at an upstream side of the conical hole 9a. A flow passage 13 communicated with the annular clearance 12 is formed between the supporting block 4 and the die holder 11. The flow passage 13 is connected to a pump P arranged outside the food extruder assembly 1 through a pipe 14. This pump P may supply as a sub-material the same material as the main-material supplied into the molding barrel 2 or a different material from a separate extruder while the material being melted. A sub-material supplying means C is formed by the passage 13 and the pump P. As the melted main-material is supplied between the extruding barrel 2 and the core 6, the main-material passes through the axial passages 7, becomes a thread-like product while being cooled and then the material is extruded to the annular clearance 12. At this time, the annular clearance 12 is filled with the melted sub-material such as kneaded material or the like by the sub-material supplying means C. The sub-material is applied to the thread-like product or immersed in it and extruded together from the die hole 9. The sub-material becomes a part of the food and at the same time it becomes a binder for the thread-like main-material. The food extruders A can be assembled at a front part of one extruding unit B and applied for processing a stick-like food such as one crab stick or the like. In this case, a plurality of food extruders A are assembled at the front part of one extruding unit B as a device for performing a simultaneous processing of a plurality of stick-like foods. The fixing block 5, the supporting block 4 and the die holder 11 are of a disk plate, for example, and a plurality of food extruders A are arranged around a center of it. Thus, a plurality of molding barrels 2 are equally spaced apart and fixed in a circumferential direction to the fixing block 5 and the supporting block 4. The core 6 is inserted into each of the molding barrels 2. The die holder 11 is fixed with the die head 10 in concentric relation with each of the molding barrels 2. The die holder 11 is telescopically connected to the supporting block 4 by bolts or clamps. An accumulation part 15 of the sub-material supplied from the pump P is formed at a center of the die holder and then radial or disk-like flow passages 13 are set from the accumulation part 15. At the extruding unit B is arranged a well-known extruder device 19. That is, the extruder device 19 has two axial (or one) extruding screws 21 within an extruder barrel 20. The main-material is agitated and kneaded at a high temperature and a high pressure to make a melted state and then the material is extruded out of the extreme end of the extruding barrel 20. A flange part 22 at the front part of the extruding barrel 20 is telescopically coupled to a rear surface of the fixing block 5 and fixed by bolts or clamps. A center of this extruding barrel 20 is coincided with a center of a circular arrangement of the food extruders A. The food extruders A are arranged without being interfered with an outer circumference of the extruding barrel 20. The front surface of the extruding barrel 20 is formed with a circular extruding space 23 between it and the fixing block 5 and this space becomes a passage for radially dispersing the molten main-material being extruded from the extruder device 19. An outer circumferential surface of the circular extruding space 23 is a pitch circle of the circularly arranged cores 6. The core 6 passes at its rear part through the flange 22, and the fixing part 24 at the rear end is fixed to the rear surface of the flange part 22 through bolts 25. An annular spacing 26 is formed at an outer circumference of the core 6 corresponding to a coupling position between the fixing block 5 and the flange 22. This annular space 26 is formed in the fixing block 5 by forming concentrically with the hole of the molding barrel 2 and further forming a larger diameter groove than the hole. The spacing is communicated with the circular extruding spacing 23 at its substantial semi-circumferential part and is made deeper than an outer peripheral part of the extruding spacing 23. The annular spacing 26 is communicated with all the axial passages 7 at each of the food extruders A and further communicated with the extruding barrel 20 through the extruding space 23, the melted main-material being extruded by the extruding screws 21 is once accumulated and supplied at an entire uniform circumferential pressure to each of the axial passages 7. The core 6 has a hollow interior, and a cylinder 28 having some helical fins 27 is inserted into the core. The cylinder 28 is held by a holder 29 inserted at a rear end of the core 6. To the cylinder 28 is connected a cold water supplying pipe 30. To the fixing part 24 is connected a cold water discharging pipe 31, resulting in forming a water jacket in which the cold water supplied through within the cylinder 28 passes between the fins 27 to cool the core 6, passes between an outer circumference of the cylinder 28 and the holder 29 and then the water is discharged from the fixing part 24. Thereby, a cooling means is formed. The food raw material is fed into the extruder device 19, agitated, kneaded under a high temperature and a high pressure by the two axial extruding screws 21 within the extruder barrel 20 and melted, then the main-material passes through the circular extruder space 23 between the extruder barrel 20 and the fixing block 5, and extrusion supplied to the plurality of annular spacings 26. Since a plurality of annular spacings 26 are arranged in a circular form around a center of the extruder barrel 20, the molten material (including a semi-molten state, similarly applied herein) is uniformly supplied to all the annular spacings 26 and further at each of the annular spacings 26, a flowing dynamic pressure at each of the positions in the spacings becomes substantially uniform. The molten material fed into each of the annular spacings 26 may flow along an outer circumferential surface of the core 6, enter the axial passages 7 formed by the core 7 and the molding barrel 2, and the fibrous tissues are cooled while they are being in a flowing direction of the material. The present invention is not limited to the aforesaid preferred embodiment but may be modified into various forms. For example, the axial passages 7 may be formed by arranging axial grooves at an inner circumferential surface 2a of the molding barrel 2. In case that the sub-material which is the same as the main-material is applied, a center of the fixing block 5 and a center of the supporting block 4 are communicated through a pipe, the main-material from the extruding unit B is directly supplied to the annular clearance 12 while being melted so as to enable it to be used as the sub-material. In order to control a temperature of the material within the extruding space 23, a heater may be fixed to the fixing block 5, or the jacket structure is formed to receive a thermal medium therethrough so as to enable a temperature to be adjusted. According to the present invention described above in detail, the main-material is extruded from a plurality of axial passages 7 formed by the molding barrel 2 and the core 6 to make a thread-like main-material, so that a uniform thread-like product can be made and further the molten sub-material is supplied to the thread-like product at the annular clearance 12 so as to enable them to be collected and bound at the narrow die hole 9, resulting in that the imitation food such as a crab stick having thread-like materials bound to each other can be made more accurately, easily and simply while keeping its better quality and a facility for making it can be installed simply in less-expensive manner. The food extruders A provided with the molding barrel 2, the core 6 and the die head 10 are arranged in a circular form on the fixing block 5, the extruder device 19 provided with the extruder barrel 20 and the extruder screws 21 is arranged concentrically around a center of the circular arrangement of the food extruders, the main-material is supplied from the extruder device 19 to the annular spacing 26 at the rear outer circumference of the core 6 through the circular extruding space 23, so that it becomes possible to supply the main-material from one extruder 19 to a plurality of food extruders A under a uniform condition and then a mass-production of the product can be carried out without decreasing its quality and further its facility cost can be reduced.

Claims: A food extruder assembly (1) including a food extruder (A), said food extruder (A) comprising a core (6) having a conical end (8); a die head (10) facing said conical end (8) of said core (6) so as to define an annular clearance therebetween, said die head (10) having a die hole (9); a plurality of axial passages (7) for extruding a thread-like main-material; and said food extruder assembly (1) further including means (C) for supplying a sub-material to said annular clearance (12) to mix with said main-material extruded from said axial passages (7), characterized in that said food extruder (A) further comprises a molding barrel (2), in which said core (6) is fitted; in that said axial passages (7) are defined by said molding barrel (2) and said core (6) and are arranged circumferentially spaced around said core (6); and in that said die hole (9) communicates with said axial passages (7) via said annular clearance (12). A food extruder assembly according to claim 1, further characterized in that a cooling means (27, 28) is installed within said core (6). A food extruder assembly according to claim 2, further characterized in that said cooling means comprises a cylinder (28) having helical fins (27). A food extruder assembly according to claim 1, further characterized in that said means (C) for supplying a sub-material comprises a pump (P) connected to said annular clearance (12) via a flow passage (13). A food extruder assembly according to claim 1, further characterized in that said axial passages (7) are defined between said core (6) and said molding barrel (2). A food extruder assembly according to claim 1, comprising a plurality of said food extruders (A) arranged in a circle, and a main-material extruder device (19) having a barrel (20) arranged to pass through substantially the center of said circle, wherein the axial passages (7) of each of said food extruders are in communication with said barrel (20) for supplying said main-material under pressure to said axial passages (7).

Inventors: SAWA KIYOHIKO, SAWA, KIYOHIKO
Applicants: KOBE STEEL LTD, KABUSHIKI KAISHA KOBE SEIKO SHO ALSO KNOWN AS KOBE STEEL LTD.
Application year: 1991
Main classification: A23P1
IPC codes: B29C47, A23P1, B30B11, A23J3