GB558141A - Improvements in a method of producing an edible cereal product, and the product resulting therefrom - Google Patents

Abstract

558,141. Cereal preparations. STEVENS, A. H. (National Biscuit Co.). July 15, 1941, No. 8949. [Class 58] [Also in Groups V, VI and XIII] A crisp cooked bran food in the form of small pellets is made by coating finely-divided bran with an edible binding material, such as sugar, fruit juice or syrup, malt extract, honey, gelatine, starch or agar agar, or a mixture of these, cooking under steam pressure until it becomes adherent, extruding in a plurality of strings and directing a blast of air through the strings while they are being extruded and divided into pellets. Bran may be fed from a mill 5 by conveyers 7, 9, 11 to one or more pressure cookers 12, binding solution being fed from a tank 13 to the hopper 10 of the screw conveyer 11, and the cooked bran passed directly or by a conveyer 38 to a screw feed, or grooved roller, extruding machine 17 opening into a tumbler 19 to which air is supplied by a pipe 18. The pellets formed in the tumbler may fall directly or by way of a conveyor or shoot 21 into a vat 20, Fig.1A, through which air is passed from a blower 22 supplying the pipe 18. When the pellets are surface dried they are transferred to a second vat and further dried by air supplied by a blower over heating coils and finally toasted in a rotating cylindrical oven. The toasted pellets may be cooled in vats, similar to the vats 20, or on a belt before packaging. Alternatively, the pellets may fall from the tumbler 17 on to a vibrating screen 39, through which cool air is directed from a distributor 40, and be carried thence by a conveyer 42 to a cooling and drying tower 43, Fig. 4A, having an upper section supplied with cool air through an inlet 47 and lower sections supplied with hot air through inlets 55 and a spreader 45 from which the pellets fall successively on to perforated screens or baffles 46 adjacent louered air outlets 44 on opposite sides. From the tower, the pellets may be carried by conveyers 58, 59 to a vibrating screen 60 and drip into tempering bins 61 or directly into the toasting oven.