CA1103985A - Production of diced hot banana peppers - Google Patents

Abstract

PRODUCTION OF DICED HOT BANANA PEPPERS

Abstract of the Disclosure A process is described for preparing diced hot banana peppers which avoids the usual manual procedures of slicing and removing seeds and pulp. According to the novel method, stems are removed and the peppers are washed in the usual manner, but these washed peppers are then passed directly through a commercial dicing machine to produce a diced mass of material including diced vegetable flesh, pulp and seeds. This diced mass is then fed in one end of a cylindrical revolving screen sizer wherein the seeds and pulp are separated from the diced vegetable flesh by passing through the screen to waste while the diced vege-table flesh remains on the screen. The diced vegetable flesh substantially free of the undesirable pulp and seeds is then collected from the screen and can be directly frozen or pickled for use by the consumer.

Description

~3985 Background of the invention ]. Field of the Invention .. . . _ .
This invention relates to a process for the DreparatiOn of diced hot banana peppers and, particularly, to a process which does not require manual steps.

2. Description of the Prior Art .
A wide variety of garden peppers are used in foods and their popularity is on the increase. Sucn peppers generally belong to the genus Capsicum and the present application is particularly concerned with a long variety of hot peppers generally known as "hot banana peppers". These are normally made up in the form of long strips and pickled in a usual manner. They may also be frozen for subsequent use and there is a very significant use of the frozen peppers in the preparation of pizzas.
A problem that has been encountered with the hot banana peppers is that they have not been amenable to mechanical processing. Thus, in order to remove the undesirable seeds and interior pulp, it has been necessary to manually cut the peppers and remove the central portions including the seeds and pulp by hand.
At the same time, with the wide spread use of these peppers in various foods and the great demand for them in a convenient form, there has been a great interest in a means for providing hot banana peppers in a diced form.
Such dices peppers could be sold in the form of a diced pickle or as frozen diced peppers.
It is, therefore, the object of the present invention to provide a convenient commercial procedure for the production of diced hot banana peppers without the need for munual preparation.

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39~35 Summary of the Invention Thus, the present invention provides a process for preparing diced hot banana peppers which comprises the steps of removing the stems from the peppers and washing them in the usual manner and then passing the-washed peppers through a commercial dicing machine to produce a diced mass of material including diced vegetable flesh, pulp and seeds. This diced mass is then passed into one end of a cylindrical revolving screen sizer in which the seeds and pulp are separated from the diced vegetable flesh by passing through the screen to waste while the diced vegetable flesh remains on the screen to be collected at the opposite end of the revolving screen sizer.
In view of the difficutlies normally encountered in the separation of the pulpy fibrous material and seeds from the interior of a pepper, it was not to be expected that the pulpy component would be sufficiently separated from the fleshy component by means of dicing such that the pulpy material would pass through a screen together with the seeds while leaving the diced pepper pieces on the screen. It was even more surprising that this operation could be carried out by the present procedure while leaving the diced pepper pieces substantially intact.
Excellent results were achieved using a sizin~ screen having a mesh size of about 1/4 to 1/2 inch.
Description of the Preferred Embodiments . . , . _ . . _ _ . _ . .
In the drawing which illustrates the invention Figure 1 is a schematic representati~n of the ` process; and Figure 2 is a sectional view of a dicer.

The various individual steps in the process sequence are ~D3~3S

shown in block form since each step within itself is a known individual step within the field of vegetable processing.
Thus, looking at the drawing, a supply of hot banana peppers 10 are passed through a stem removal station 11 for stem removal. After the stem removal the peppers pass through a scrubber where the surfaces are scrubbed by means of brushes and these scrubbed peppers are given a final washing in the washing stage 13. These washed peppers are then fed into a dicer 14 and this can be a : 10 usual vegetable dicing machine such as an Urschel model B dicing machine. The material emerging from the dicing machine 14 is then passed directly into a rotating sizing screen 15 having a mesh size of about 1/4 to 3/8 inch and a length of about 10 feet. During the passage of the material through the rotating screen 15, the pulp and seeds pass through the screen and drop down onto the seed and pulp collector 16. Diced pepper material substantially free of either seeds or pulp is discharged from the opposite end of the rotating screen 15 and is collected in product receiver 17.
The diced hot banana peppers collected at 17 are then either bottled and pickled in the usual manner of a pickled vegetable or are directly passed to a freezing tunnel for fast freezing and packaging. The pickled hot banana peppers are used for addition to a wide variety of foods in the home while the frozen peppers are intended primarily for use in the production of pizzas.

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Claims (5)

The embodiments of the invention in which an exclusive property or privilege is claimed are defined as follows:

1. A process for preparing diced hot banana peppers which comprises the steps of (a) removing stems from the peppers, (b) washing the peppers (c) passing the washed peppers through a commercial dicing machine to produce a diced mass of material including diced vegetable flesh, pulp and seeds and (d) passing said diced mass in one end of a cylindrical revolving screen sizer whereby the seeds and pulp are separated from the diced vegetable flesh by passing through the screen to waste while the diced vegetable flesh remains on the screen and (e) collecting diced vegetable flesh from the screen.

2. The process according to claim 1 wherein the sizing screen has a mesh size of about 1/4" to 1/2".

3. The process according to claim 2 wherein the peppers are diced to a size slightly larger than the screen mesh size.

4. The process according to claim 1 wherein the diced peppers collected from the screen are frozen and packaged.

5. The process according to claim 1 wherein the diced peppers collected from the screen are pickled.