IE960649A1 - A biscuit manufacturing process - Google Patents

Abstract

Ingredient materials are delivered to a mixer for mixing to form a biscuit dough. The dough is passed through a moulder having a roller with indentations for forming biscuit-shaped dough pieces. The indentations have a non-stick coating to faciliate release of the dough pieces onto a conveyor for passage through an oven for baking to form biscuits. Downstream of the oven the biscuits are cooled. The biscuits are then streamed into eight columns on an air bed prior to inversion and delivery to a stacker. Stacks of biscuits are delivered from the stacker to a wrapping station.<Fig.1>

Description

This invention relates to a biscuit manufacturing process.

The invention is particularly concerned with the production of biscuits by a rotary moulding technique and in particular the production of ginger snap type biscuits.

Dough for ginger snaps biscuit production tends by it nature to be relatively sticky because of the inclusion of sugar syrups which result in a crunchy texture in the finished product. This presents problems in handling the dough and in particular moulding the dough accurately to a desired shape and subsequently releasing shaped dough pieces from the moulder. To minimise the problem it is known to apply a release agent such as oil onto the mould surface prior to moulding. This is not ideal however as the oil can adversely effect the biscuit taste and further it is an added production expense. It is also known to modify the ingredients in the dough to make the dough less tacky and therefore easier to handle by minimising the sugar syrup content for example. However, this will generally mean a sacrifice in product quality.

It is an object of this invention to overcome these problems.

It is also an object of the invention to provide an improved process and apparatus for the efficient handling and packaging of the biscuits produced.

According to the invention there is provided a biscuit manufacturing process comprising the steps: delivering preset quantities of selected ingredient to a mixer: OPBH TOPUBLIC INSF^W1 UNDER SECTION 28 AND RULE 23 .......sluh J 4NL.No.. ,of.

Mi - 2 mixing the ingredient materials to form a biscuit dough; discharging dough from the mixer; squeezing the dough between a pair of spaced-apart pressing rollers onto a feed conveyor for distributing dough evenly across the feed conveyor; delivering the dough at a desired rate on the feed conveyor to a moulder supply hopper; feeding the dough discharged from the hopper to an inlet of a moulder, the moulder comprising a rotary moulding roller and an associated juxtaposed pressing roller; pressing the dough into a plurality of spaced-apart shaped indentations in an outer surface of the moulder roller corresponding to a required biscuit shape, the surface of each indentation having a non-stick surface coating thereon; scraping away excess dough from an outer surface of the moulding roller; discharging shaped dough pieces from the roller indentations onto a feed conveyor for delivery to a continuous oven; passing dough pieces through the oven and baking the dough pieces to form biscuits; cooling the biscuits; and packaging the biscuits. - 3 Advantageously the provision of a non-stick surface coating on the roller ensures a good release of the dough pieces from the roller without sticking or pulling the dough pieces out of shape. Conveniently this allows the efficient and trouble-free handling of various sticky doughs. Therefore doughs with a high sugar syrup content can be handled by the roller which is particularly desirable in ginger snap biscuits.

In a particularly preferred embodiment the process includes leading biscuits away from an outlet of the oven on a conveyor, passing the biscuits beneath a gauging device mounted above the conveyer, a lower most surface of the gauging device being located at pre-set distance above an upper surface of the conveyor, engaging a top surface of each biscuit with the lower most surface of the gauging device as the biscuit is passed beneath the gauging device for flattening a top surface of the biscuit. This advantageously ensures the production of biscuits of substantially uniform thickness with flat upper and lower surfaces which facilitate packaging.

In another embodiment the process includes streaming the biscuits after cooling into a preset number of rows of biscuits by passing the biscuits over an inclined air bed, directing the biscuits to a streaming funnel at a lower outlet end of the air bed, said streaming funnel having spaced-apart sidewalls extending upwardly from the bed and the sidewalls tapering inwardly between an inlet end and an outlet end of the bed and terminating in an outlet neck in which the sides of the neck are spaced apart by a distance corresponding to the desired number of rows of biscuits formed; - 4 feeding each row of biscuits to a stacking machine, collecting a selected number of biscuits together in the stacking machine to form a stack of biscuits; delivering the stack of biscuit to a wrapping station, and wrapping the biscuits.

In a preferred embodiment the process includes carrying the biscuits away from the streaming bed on a discharge conveyor, controlling the speed of the discharge conveyor for retaining the biscuits backed up to an inlet of the streaming funnel neck.

Conveniently the process includes sensing biscuits at an inlet of the neck and controlling the speed of the discharge conveyor in response to the sensed biscuits at the inlet.

In another embodiment the process includes the step of inverting the biscuits after streaming by feeding each row of biscuits through an inclined turning chute, engaging one side of each biscuit with a turning flange at one side of the chute, toppling the biscuit off the flange onto a curved guide at an opposite side of the chute for smoothly inverting the biscuits.

In a further embodiment the process includes shindling a plurality of the biscuits in inclined troughs at an inlet of the stacking machine, vibrating the troughs for feeding the biscuits in the troughs to the inlet of the stacking machine, advancing a leading end of each row of biscuits from a trough onto a pair of spaced-apart support arms, inserting a stop for retaining biscuits at an outlet end of the trough, lowering and separating the arms for dropping the collected biscuits onto a discharge conveyor for delivery to the wrapping station.

In another embodiment the process includes weighing each pack of biscuits downstream of the wrapping station, delivering the pack from the weighing station against an end stop, the end stop blocking an inlet of a reject bin and being retractable for discharging any off weight packs to the reject bin.

Preferably, an air jet is operable in tandem with the end stop to eject off weight packs into the reject bin.

In another embodiment the process includes the step of injecting steam into the oven adjacent an inlet end of the oven while conveying dough pieces through the oven. This advantageously forms a moisture layer on an upper surface of each dough piece. Conveniently the evaporation of said moisture layer or film downstream in the oven forms a cracked or fissured surface on the biscuits.

In another aspect the invention provides whenever produced according to the process described herein.

The invention will be more clearly understood by the following description of some embodiments thereof, given by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 is a schematic elevational view of a first portion of a production line for manufacturing biscuits according to the invention; Fig. 2 is a schematic elevational view of an intermediate portion of the production line for manufacturing biscuits according to the process; - 6 Fig. 3 is a plan view corresponding to the production line portion shown in Fig. 2 illustrating the disposition of biscuits on conveyors as they are delivered along the intermediate production line portion; Fig. 4 is a schematic elevational view of an end portion of the production line; Fig. 5 is plan view corresponding to Fig. 4 showing the disposition of biscuits as they travel down the end portion of the production line; Fig. 6 is a perspective view of a moulding roller used in the process; Fig. 7 is a detail sectional view showing dough moulding apparatus used in the process; Fig. 8 is a detail partially sectioned elevational view of portion of a cooling conveyor used in the process; Fig. 9 is a detail perspective view showing a biscuit streamer used in the process; Fig. 10 is a detail perspective view showing portion of 20 the biscuit streamer; Fig. 11 is a perspective view of shindling apparatus used in the process; Fig. 12 is a detail perspective view of portion of the shindling apparatus; - 7 Fig. 13 is a detail partially sectioned elevational view of a biscuit inverting portion of the shindling apparatus; Fig. 14 is a detail elevational view of biscuit stacking apparatus used in the process; Fig. 15 is a view similar to Fig. 14 showing the stacking apparatus in another position of use; Fig. 16 is a perspective view of a weighing station used in the process; and Fig. 17 is a detail perspective view showing a packing station used in the process.

Referring to the drawings a process and apparatus for manufacturing biscuits according to the invention will be described.

Preset quantities of selected ingredient materials such as flour and sugar are delivered from storage hoppers to a weigher 10 and then to a mixer 12 beneath the weigher 10. Other selected ingredient materials such as sugar syrups, vegetable oil and minor ingredient material such as raising agents, ground ginger and flavourings are also delivered to the mixer 12. The ingredient materials are mixed in the mixer 12 to form a biscuit dough which is discharged from the mixer and passed through a pair of pressing rollers 14 for distributing the dough evenly across a feed conveyor 15. The dough is delivered at a desired rate on the feed conveyor 15 to a moulder supply hopper 16. Dough is discharged from the hopper 16 into a moulder 17. - 8 The moulder 17 (Fig. 7) has a rotary moulding roller 18 and an associated juxtaposed pressing roller 19. A plurality of spaced-apart shaped indentations 20 are provided in an outer surface 21 of the moulding roller 18, the shaped indentations corresponding to a required biscuit shape. It will be noted that a surface within each indentation has a teflon coating thereon to facilitate release of shaped dough pieces from each indentation. Dough 25 discharged from the hopper 16 is pressed into the indentations 20 in the moulding roller 18. Excess dough is scraped away from an outer surface 21 of the moulding roller 18 as the roller 18 rotates past a scraper 26. Downstream of the scraper 26 shaped dough pieces 28 are discharged onto a pick-up conveyor belt 29 for delivery to a continuous oven 30. The pick-up conveyor belt 29 engages an outer face of each dough piece and as the dough pieces have a greater affinity for the belt than the roller 18 they are released from the roller 18 onto the belt 29.

It will be appreciated that the provision of a teflon coating on an inner surface of each indentation 20 on the roller 18 ensures a good release and transfer of the dough biscuits to the belt 29 without sticking or pulling the dough pieces out of shape. This ease of release afforded by this roller construction advantageously allows the efficient an trouble-free handling of various sticky doughs. Therefore doughs with a high sugar syrup content can be handled by the roller. As a high sugar syrup content promotes a crunchy texture, which is particularly desirable in ginger snap biscuits, this roller construction facilitates the production of a high quality biscuit product.

In passing through the continuous oven 30 the dough pieces 28 are baked to form biscuits which are discharged from an - 9 outlet 31 of the oven 30 onto a cooling conveyor 32. Preferably as the dough pieces enter the oven steam is injected into to oven adjacent an inlet of the oven thus forming a moisture coating or film on an upper surface of the dough pieces. Downstream within the oven as the dough pieces are baked evaporation of moisture from the surface of the dough pieces causes cracking and fissures in an upper surface of the dough pieces which is desirable.

Biscuits discharged from the oven 30 are carried on the conveyor 32 beneath a gauging roller 36 which is mounted above the conveyor 32 extending across the conveyor 32. A lower most surface of the gauging roller 36 is located a pre-set distance above an upper surface of the conveyor 32. As the biscuits pass beneath the gauging roller 36 a top surface of each biscuit engages with the lower most surface of the gauging roller 36 which flattens a top surface of the biscuit and also ensures the biscuits are of a substantially uniform thickness. This advantageously facilitates packing downstream.

The cooling conveyor 32 is an elongate conveyor for cooling the biscuits in air. Two tiers are provided on the cooling conveyor 32, namely an upper tier 33 and a lower tier 34. The biscuits pass along the upper tier 33 and back along the lower tier 34 to a packing line 35. At an end of each tier 33,34 there is a turning device 37,38 for transferring the biscuits between conveyors travelling in opposite directions while maintaining the biscuits in an upright position. The turning device is shown in detail in Fig. 8 and comprises a rapidly spinning roller 40 at an end of the uppermost conveyor 33 which ejects biscuits 42 outwardly of the conveyor 33 to drop in an upright orientation onto the lower conveyor 34. - 10 On the packing line 35 the biscuits are carried on a delivery conveyor 45 to a streaming station 46. A discharge end of the conveyor 45 is retractable over a discharge chute 47 for discharging biscuits into a collecting bin 48 if desired for example due to a malfunction downstream.

At the streaming station 46 the biscuits 42 are passed over an inclined air bed 50 having a perforated surface up through which an air stream is delivered to float the biscuits along the air bed 50. A streaming funnel 53 is upstanding on the bed 50 and has sidewalls 54 which taper inwardly between an inlet end and an outlet end of the bed 50. The sidewalls 53 terminate in a outlet neck 55 in which opposite sides of the neck 55 are spaced apart by a distance corresponding to the desired number of rows of biscuits to be formed.

The streaming station advantageously uses the number of rows or lanes of biscuits coming from the cooling conveyor for handling a packaging apparatus downstream. Typically the biscuits delivered through the oven and along the cooling conveyor are in nineteen rows stretching across the conveyor. This needs to be reduced to eight rows for handling in the packaging apparatus downstream.

Biscuits are discharged from the neck 55 onto a discharge conveyor 57 the speed of which is controlled for maintaining the biscuits 42 backed up to an inlet of the neck 55 as shown in Fig. 9 thus the correct number of uniform rows of biscuits 42 are delivered to a slide 60 where the biscuits 42 are delivered into corresponding lanes 61 for feeding to a turning device 64. Optical sensors 58 are mounted on support arms 59 above the bed 50. It will be noted that a row of three sensors 58 are mounted above the bed 50 immediately upstream of an inlet - 11 56 of the neck 55 and a row of three sensors 58 are positioned downstream within the neck 55. The sensors 58 are connected to the speed controller for the discharge conveyor 57 to maintain the biscuits backed up to a position between the sensors. If the upstream sensors detect biscuits then the discharge conveyor 57 is speeded up to increase the take-away of biscuits. If no biscuits are detected by the downstream sensors then the discharge conveyor 57 speed is reduced to maintain the biscuits backed up within the neck 55.

At the turning device 64 each biscuit 42 is inverted in an inclined turning chute 65. Within the turning chute 65 one side of the biscuit 42 engages with a turning flange 66 at one side of the chute 65 toppling the biscuit 42 off the flange 66 onto a curved guide 67 at an opposite side of the chute 65 for smoothly inverting the biscuit 42.

Inverted biscuits 42 are delivered on a transfer conveyor 69 for delivery to one of a number of troughs 70. At an outlet end of the transfer conveyor 69 a spinning roller 71 ejects each biscuit into associated troughs 70 shindling or overlapping a number of the biscuits 42 as shown in Figs. 11 and 13.

A vibrator (not shown) is connected to each trough 70 for vibrating the trough 70 for feeding the biscuits 42 along the trough 70 to a stacker 74. The trough 70 is also inclined downwardly towards the stacker 70 to assist progress of biscuits along the trough 70.

The stacker 74 has a pair of spaced-apart biscuit collecting arms 75 associated with and in alignment with each trough 70 and mounted at an outlet end of the trough 70. A retractable stop 76 retains the biscuits 42 at an outlet end of the trough 70. A loading arm 77 is movable - 12 forwardly in the direction of arrow A (Fig. 15) to engage a leading biscuit 42 in the trough 70. With the stop 76 retracted upwardly the loading arm 77 reverses to smoothly guide biscuits from the trough 70 onto the support arms 75. With the arm 77 fully retracted as shown in Fig. 14 the stop 76 is again lowered to retain the biscuits 42 in the trough 70 thus a preselected number of biscuits 42 are stacked on the arms 75. The travel of the arm 77 can be adjusted to select the number of biscuits 42 retained on the arms 75. Once the arms 75 have been loaded they are then lowered and moved apart to drop the stack of biscuits 42 onto a conveyor 80 for delivery to a wrapping station 82.

In the wrapping station 82 a cover is drawn about the stack of biscuits 42 and sealed along a side edge and sealed at each end to form a pack of biscuits.

Each pack 85 of biscuits is then delivered to a weigher 86 which checks the weight of the pack 85 of biscuits.

Biscuits packs 85 are discharged from the weigher 86 onto a conveyor bend 88 in which the packs are turned from an axial feed orientation into a sideways feed orientation as shown in Fig. 16. As a pack 85 is discharged from the weigher 86 it is discharged against a retaining arm 89. The retaining arm 89 is operable by means of an associated ram 90 for movement between an extended position as shown in Fig. 16 guarding an entrance to a reject bin 92 and a retracted position opening the entrance to the reject bin 92. The ram 90 is operatively connected to the weigher 86 so if any outsize pack is weighed on the weigher 86 the arm 89 is retracted for ejection of the pack 85 into the reject bin 92. To facilitate rapid ejection into the bin 92 an air jet 93 is positioned above the conveyor 88, the - 13 air jet 93 turning on as the arm 89 retracts to blow the pack off the conveyor 88 into the bin 92.

The packs 85 are then delivered to a loading station 95 having a pack conveyor 96 located directly above a box conveyor 97. A box loading shelf 98 is provided alongside the box conveyor 97 so that packs 85 may be loaded in an associated box 99 which when loaded is simply pushed inwardly onto the box conveyor 97 for delivery through box taping and palletising stations 100.

The invention is not limited to the embodiments hereinbefore described which may be varied in both construction and detail.

Claims (10)

1. A biscuit manufacturing process, comprising the steps : delivering preset quantities of selected ingredient materials to a mixer; mixing the ingredient materials to form a biscuit dough; discharging dough from the mixer; squeezing the dough between a pair of spaced-apart pressing rollers onto a feed conveyor for distributing dough evenly across the feed conveyor; delivering the dough at a desired rate on the feed conveyor to a moulder supply hopper; feeding the dough discharged from the hopper to an inlet of a moulder, the moulder comprising a rotary moulding roller and an associated juxtaposed pressing roller; pressing the dough into a plurality of spacedapart shaped indentations in an outer surface of the moulder roller corresponding to a required biscuit shape, the surface of each indentation having a non-stick surface coating thereon; scraping away excess dough from an outer surface of the moulding roller; - 15 discharging shaped dough pieces from the roller indentations onto a feed conveyor for delivery to a continuous oven; passing dough pieces through the oven and baking the dough pieces to form biscuits; cooling the biscuits; and packaging the biscuits. A process as claimed in claim 1 which includes leading biscuits away from an outlet of the oven on a conveyor, passing the biscuits beneath a gauging device mounted above the conveyor, a lower most surface of the gauging device being located a pre-set distance above an upper surface of the conveyor, engaging a top surface of each biscuit with the lower most surface of the gauging device as the biscuit is passing beneath the gauging device for flattening a top surface of the biscuit. A process as claimed in claim 1 or 2 which includes: streaming the biscuits after cooling into a preset number of rows of biscuits by passing the biscuits over an inclined air bed, directing the biscuits to a streaming funnel at a lower outlet end of the air bed, said streaming funnel having spaced-apart sidewalls extending upwardly from the bed and the sidewalls tapering inwardly between an inlet end and an outlet end of the bed and terminating in an outlet neck in which the sides of the neck are spaced apart by a distance corresponding to the desired number of rows of biscuits formed; - 16 feeding each row of biscuits to a stacking machine, collecting a selected number of biscuits together in the stacking machine to form a stack of biscuits; 5 delivering the stack of biscuit to a wrapping station, and wrapping the biscuits.

2. 4. A process as claimed in claim 3 which includes carrying the biscuits away from the streaming bed on a discharge conveyor, controlling the speed of the 10 discharge conveyor for retaining the biscuits backed up to an inlet of the streaming funnel neck.

3. 5. A process as claimed in claim 4, which includes sensing biscuits at an inlet of the neck and controlling the speed of the discharge conveyor in 15 response to the sensed biscuits at the inlet.

4. 6. A process as claimed in any of claims 3 to 5 which includes the step of inverting the biscuits after streaming by feeding each row of biscuits through an inclined turning chute, engaging one side of each 20 biscuit with a turning flange at one side of the chute, toppling the biscuit off the flange onto a curved guide at an opposite side of the chute for smoothly inverting the biscuits.

5. 7. A process as claimed in any of claims 3 to 6 which 25 includes shindling a plurality of the biscuits in inclined troughs at an inlet of the stacking machine, vibrating the troughs for feeding the biscuits in the troughs to the inlet of the stacking machine, advancing a leading end of each row of biscuits from 30 a trough onto a pair of spaced-apart support arms, inserting a stop for retaining biscuits at an outlet - 17 end of the trough, lowering and separating the arms for dropping the collected biscuits onto a discharge conveyor for delivery to the wrapping station.

6. 8. A process as claimed in any of claims 3 to 7 which 5 includes the step of weighing each pack of biscuits downstream of the wrapping station, delivering the pack from the weighing station against an end stop, the end stop blocking an inlet of a reject bin and being retractable for discharging any off weight 10 packs to the reject bin.

7. 9. A process as claimed in claim 8 wherein an air jet is operable in tandem with the end stop to eject off weight packs into the reject bin.

8. 10. A process as claimed in any preceding claim which 15 includes the step of injecting steam into the oven adjacent an inlet end of the oven while conveying dough pieces through the oven.

9. 11. A process for manufacturing biscuits substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the 20 accompanying drawings.

10. 12. Biscuits whenever produced according to the process as claimed in any preceding claim.