GB765230A - Improvements in or relating to the production of confectionery - Google Patents

Abstract

765,230. Starch moulding machines. WINKLER, R., and DUNNEBIER, K. June 23, 1954 [July 1, 1953], No. 18368/54. Class 87(2). Apparatus, combined with a confectionery moulding machine in which sweets are moulded in impressions which have been stamped in powder, comprises a conveyer for conveying moist powder separated from sweets in the moulding machine, one or more feeding devices for diverting part of the conveyed moist powder to a conduit where it is conveyed by a heated air stream to one or more separators and means for feeding the dried powder obtained from the separators to moist powder being conveyed for delivery to moulds. When the confectionery has been cast in a machine 57 by pouring liquid stocking material into impressions of the required shape formed in powder contained in mould boxes 4, these boxes are stacked in a holder 53, Fig. 1. Conveyer chains 52 withdraw the lowermost mould boxes in succession, which are inverted at 54, thereby emptying their contents, powder and all, on a shoot 27. The mould boxes, facing upward, are then brought to the position shown, in section, in Fig. 3, where they are refilled with powder, on their continued travel the top surface of the powder is levelled, after which stamps 55 make the required impressions in it. The mould boxes, so prepared, are transferred by a conveyer 56 to the known casting machine 57. Fig. 3 shows means whereby some of the powder, after it has been sifted and the confectionery has been removed from it, is re-used in the mould boxes without being dried and whereby the rest is dried and mixed for re-use with the undried powder, the proportions of dried and undried powder being controllable to give the required resultant moisture content. The sifting is in two parallel operations, Fig. 4, the apparatus for which is indicated generally at 1 in Fig. 3. The shoot 27 is constructed to divide the powder into .two streams which, after passing through a wide-meshed rocking sieve 59, fall, one on an inclined coarse sieve 20 and the other on a similar coarse sieve 24, from which they pass to fine sieves 21, 25 respectively, this vertical arrangement economizing space. The confectionery is arrested by the sieve 59 and discharged from the end thereof, and the impurities separated from the powder by the sieves 20, 21, 24, 25 fall into a trough 29, separated into larger and smaller particles. ' The sifted powder falls from the lower sieves on a bucket conveyer 2 and from the upper sieves through an opening 23 to a scraper chain 30 which transfers it to the conveyer 2. The conveyer 2 raises the powder to the level of the mould boxes 4, Fig. 3, some falling straight into the mould boxes through another sieve 3 and the rest being drawn into a pipe 7 by cell rollers 5, 6. These cell rollers, Fig. 6, comprise wings 33 projecting radially from a shaft 32 and longer than the radius of the casing in which they rotate, made of flexible material, e.g. rubber, so that they bend as they scrape against the wall of the casing and carry the powder with them but fly out to throw it out of the casing as soon as they lose their contact with its wall. The effective area of the casing can be altered by a slide, whereby the proportion of powder drawn off by the cell roller 5 may be controlled. Hot air is drawn through the pipe 7 from a heater, not shown, together with the powder from the cell roller 6 and passed to a blower 8 which blows the air and powder into cyclones 10, whereby most of the powder is expelled. The partially purified air is blown by another blower 13 into cyclones 15 in which the last remnants of powder are removed. The air escapes through an exhaust pipe 17 and the powder discharged from the cyclones is moved by a scraper chain 18 to a cell roller 19, which returns it to the bucket conveyer 2 to be mixed again with the undried powder. The powder cleaning and drying machine is preferably arranged above the machine through which the mould boxes pass on the conveyer chains 52.