• Malik Engineers

Fried Type Extruder

Malik Engineers have developed Fried Type Extruder (medium shear type) suitable for producing fried type corn collets or curls from de germinated corn meal or grits.

The extruder is uniquely designed consists of a horizontal Auger screw driven through a geared motor to transport the moisturized corn raw material. Due to its special design it is suited for producing only Kurkure type product or curls. Unlike other extruders, it does not have any die through which the product comes out.

The screw continuously feeds between a stator (fixed) brass plate and rotating brass plate spinning at high speed by a separate high power motor. The shear applied to the material is determined by the speed of rotation of feed screw, the rotor spinning speed as well as the gap between the two brass plates. Due to friction and mechanical working of corn material, high shear is applied to raw materials, which cooks them around 120 ºC and converts the raw material to plasticized mass or dough. The moisture present is held as superheated steam inside the machine because of high temperature rise and pressure, but suddenly drops to near atmospheric after the cooked product emerges out of opening between the two plates. The material exits out through the plates in random pattern and is cut by several knives placed around the periphery of plates. The materials are held at pressure of approx. 1000 PSI or 70 Bars. This medium pressure will expand the cooked product, as superheated steam escapes out of product, the product density is relatively higher (compared to baked product which are produced using high shear extruders). Since density is higher, it is ideally suitable for frying and absorbs less oil than baked type product. The length of product can be controlled by varying the knife speed. The width (thickness) of product can be varied by adjusting the gap between the two bronze plates. The rotor is driven through high power AC motor of 30 HP and feed screw is driven through geared motor with 5 HP power. A large capacity hopper is provided above the feed screw to hold the moisturized corn meal/grits.

After the wet product is obtained from the above extruder, it is transported via. elevators/conveyors through downstream equipments viz. sifter (separator) to separate crushing and small pieces / incomplete expanded material from properly sized collets, fryer for removing the excess moisture and final expansion, coating drum for applying seasoning, Cheese slurry system for applying cheese if required, cooling belt for cooling the product for packing. The machine is available in production capacity of 100 Kg/hour.