Patent ID: 8572933

Claim:
A method for manufacturing a soft capsule containing a filling within a shell portion formed of a shell-sheet, comprising ejecting a molten shell material in the form of a sheet having an almost uniform thickness from a spreader box, and cooling the shell-sheet ejected from the spreader box by a casting drum, and supplying shell-sheets thus obtained between a pair of die rolls so as to face each other, joining the shell-sheets by butt joint function of the die rolls, and supplying the filling from a segment in a filling supply section between the shell-sheets in time for joining, wherein the shell portion is formed by blending starch, λ carrageenan, a metal salt, dextrin, a plasticizer, and water as components for a raw material composition, wherein the shell-sheets are dried by irradiation of a medium wavelength infrared ray before they are joined by the pair of die rolls, the shell-sheets used herein are each dried by a single-sided drying, in which the shell-sheet positioned on the casting drum is irradiated with a medium wavelength infrared ray to thereby dry mainly the one surface of the shell-sheet corresponding to outside of a capsule, to form into a sheet-form having an almost uniform thickness, an appropriate viscosity, and moisture content and enhanced adhesiveness between mutual sheets; and the filling is supplied to the shell-sheets in time for joining the shell-sheets at a segment section temperature of 35 to 50° C. without applying excessive heat load to a capsule filling to perform encapsulation, wherein the drying of the shell-sheets occurs prior to the encapsulation.