JP2019180258A - Continuous solidification device of soybean curd material - Google Patents

Abstract

To provide a continuous solidification device of a soybean curd material whose entire size is made smaller.SOLUTION: A continuous solidification device of a soybean curd material comprises: a vertically long cylindrical body 11 having a rectangular section which injects a soybean curd material into soybean curd tissue and solidifying the curd; a cutter 12 installed on a lower part of the cylindrical body; a discharge conveyor 20 installed under the cylindrical body in a freely elevating manner; and a transfer conveyor 30 disposed on a downstream side of the discharge conveyor, in which the cutter, the discharge conveyor and the transfer conveyor sequentially cut out products having a prescribed thickness from a lower side of the cylindrical body and discharge them on the transfer conveyor.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to a continuous coagulation apparatus for tofu materials useful for continuously producing tofu products such as cotton tofu and silken tofu.

  When continuously producing a tofu product, a continuous coagulation apparatus is required for continuously coagulating the tofu material in which the soy milk and the coagulant are mixed.

  In the conventional continuous solidification apparatus, the tofu material is continuously put on the conveyor belt at the upstream end of the conveyor, and solidified while horizontally conveying the tofu material (for example, Patent Document 1). In this case, the conveyor belt is provided with a barrier plate at the upstream end and a guide member having a concave cross section at the lower side of the conveying surface in order to stack and solidify liquid tofu material to a predetermined thickness. The side edge of each of the two is folded upward along the guide member. The conveyor belt can be smoothly wound around the rollers by being deformed so as to spread on the front and rear rollers.

  In addition, a form in which a pair of guide belts are arranged opposite to each other on the left and right of the conveyor belt of the conveyor is known for a long time (for example, Patent Document 2). Each guide belt forms a bowl-shaped coagulation chamber on the conveyor belt by running in synchronization with the conveyor belt while standing vertically along the side edge of the conveyor belt.

Japanese Patent No. 4613252 JP-A-8-116903

  When such a conventional technique is used, the conveyor for the continuous solidification apparatus needs to be a large facility having a total length of more than 10 m in order to secure a necessary solidification time while realizing a predetermined production capacity. There is a problem that a large factory building is indispensable and the total investment amount tends to be excessive.

  Therefore, in view of the problems of the prior art, the object of the present invention is to reduce the overall size by combining a cutter, a discharge conveyor, and a transfer conveyor with a rectangular tube that is injected and solidified with tofu material. An object of the present invention is to provide a continuous solidification device for tofu materials that can solve the problem of the factory building and the associated investment amount.

  In order to achieve such an object, the structure of the present invention includes a vertically long cylindrical body having a rectangular cross-section for injecting a tofu material and solidifying it into a tofu tissue, a cutter provided at the bottom of the cylindrical body, and being movable up and down below the cylindrical body. The cutter, the discharge conveyor, and the transfer conveyor sequentially cut out products of a predetermined thickness from the lower side of the cylindrical body. The main point is to discharge it upward.

  The cutter can move forward horizontally into the cylinder to cut the tofu material in the cylinder, close the lower part of the cylinder, and retreat outside the cylinder to open the lower part of the cylinder.

  In addition, the discharge conveyor may form a horizontal conveyance surface that conforms to the cross-sectional shape of the cylinder, and the conveyance surface is located at an intermediate position below the cutter by an amount corresponding to a predetermined thickness of the product from the ascending position immediately below the cutter. Then, you may move up and down until it reaches the lowered position at the same level as the transfer surface of the transfer conveyor.

  Furthermore, the transfer conveyor can discharge the product from the discharge conveyor and transfer it to the next-stage transfer conveyor.

  According to such a configuration of the invention, the vertically long cylinder having a rectangular cross section has a predetermined thickness via a cutter, a discharge conveyor, and a transfer conveyor while pouring a tofu material in which soy milk and a coagulant are mixed at a predetermined ratio from above. By sequentially cutting out and discharging the products from the lower side, the solidified product can be supplied substantially continuously to the next process on the downstream side of the transfer conveyor. However, in the cylinder, the necessary amount of tofu material is constantly added to achieve the target production capacity of tofu products and to secure the solidification time required for the liquid tofu material to solidify into a homogeneous tofu tissue. It shall operate while storing. Therefore, the cylinder can coagulate the tofu material and continuously supply it to the next process without substantial horizontal movement of the tofu material, reducing the required floor area for installation and required investment. The amount of money can be reduced.

  The cutter retracts outside the cylinder and opens the lower part of the cylinder, so that all of the tofu material in the cylinder can be lowered as a single unit, and by moving forward horizontally into the cylinder, the tofu material is solidified. The finished lower end portion can be cut horizontally to form a sheet having the same cross-sectional shape as that of the cylinder, and cut out as a product that can be discharged from the cylinder. In addition, the lower part of the tofu material which descend | falls in a cylinder is already solidified by the tofu structure | tissue, and an upper part is an uncoagulated liquid state.

  A discharge conveyor having a transport surface that conforms to the cross-sectional shape of the cylinder should hold and hold the lower end of the tofu material stably on the transport surface when the cutter is retracted outside the cylinder and the tofu material in the cylinder descends. Can do.

  In the discharge conveyor, when the conveying surface is in the ascending position just below the cutter, the cutter can be moved back out of the cylinder to smoothly transfer all of the tofu material in the cylinder onto the conveying surface, and lowered to the intermediate position as it is. As a result, all of the tofu material can be lowered by an amount corresponding to a predetermined thickness when the product is discharged. Therefore, if the discharge conveyor is lowered to an intermediate position and the cutter is advanced horizontally into the cylinder, a product having a predetermined thickness can be cut into a sheet on the discharge conveyor. The sheet-like product on the discharge conveyor can be smoothly discharged onto the transfer conveyor at the same level as the transfer conveyor.

  When the transfer conveyor discharges the sheet-like product on the discharge conveyor, it can subsequently transfer the product onto the transport conveyor of the next process. The transfer conveyor minimizes the discharge time by operating at high speed in synchronization with the discharge conveyor when discharging the product from the discharge conveyor, and the transfer conveyor line speed is set when transferring the product to the transfer conveyor in the next process. It shall be operated at low speed in synchronization.

Overall configuration schematic side view A schematic front view corresponding to the arrow X in FIG. Operation flowchart Operation explanatory diagram (1) Operation explanatory diagram (2) Operation explanatory diagram (3) Operation explanatory diagram (4) Operation explanatory diagram (5) Operation explanatory diagram (6) Operation explanatory diagram (7) Explanation of operation (8) Explanation of operation (9) Operation explanatory diagram (10) Operation explanatory diagram (11) Operation explanatory diagram (12) Operation explanatory diagram (13) Operation explanatory diagram (14)

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  The tofu material continuous solidification apparatus includes a vertically long cylindrical body 11 having a rectangular cross section, a cutter 12, a discharge conveyor 20, and a transfer conveyor 30 (FIGS. 1 and 2). However, in FIGS. 1 and 2, the discharge conveyor 20 is shown in the lowered position and the raised position, respectively. Further, in FIG. 2, the transfer conveyor 30 is not shown.

  The cylindrical body 11 is formed in a rectangular tube shape that is open upward and downward. A nozzle 13 for injecting the tofu material W3 is disposed downward in the upper part of the cylinder 11, and a static mixer 14 is connected to the upstream side of the nozzle 13. The soymilk W1 from the soymilk tank 15 and the coagulant W2 from the coagulant tank 16 are supplied to the static mixer 14 via pumps P1 and P2, respectively. Therefore, the static mixer 14 can uniformly mix each predetermined amount of soymilk W1 and coagulant W2 from the pumps P1 and P2 and continuously inject it into the cylinder 11 through the nozzle 13 as a liquid tofu material W3. it can. The pumps P1 and P2 are driven by variable speed motors (not shown).

  The cutter 12 is installed in the lower part of the cylinder 11. The cutter 12 is formed in a rectangular thin plate shape that is slightly larger than the cross-sectional shape of the cylindrical body 11. The cutter 12 can move horizontally into the cylinder 11 through the driving cylinder 12a to close the lower part of the cylinder 11, and retracts to the outside of the cylinder 11 to cover the entire lower part of the cylinder 11. Can be opened.

  The discharge conveyor 20 is installed below the cylinder 11 so as to be movable up and down. The endless conveyor belt 21 of the discharge conveyor 20 is formed in a width corresponding to the long side of the cylindrical body 11, and includes a lower driving roller 22, an upper guide plate 23, intermediate guide rollers 24 and 24, and a tension roller 24a. A horizontal conveyance surface that fits the cross-sectional shape of the cylindrical body 11 is formed on the upper end via the guide plate 23. The discharge conveyor 20 is assembled to the lifting frame 25 as a whole, and the lifting frame 25 is mounted on the fixed frame 25a via the linear actuators 26 and 26 and the guide rods 26a and 26a so as to be lifted and lowered. The discharge conveyor 20 is driven by a variable speed motor (not shown).

  The discharge conveyor 20 can raise and lower the elevating frame 25 via the linear actuators 26 and 26, and can be raised and lowered between the lowered position in FIG. 1 and the raised position in FIG. The horizontal conveying surface of the discharge conveyor 20 substantially coincides with the lower end of the cylinder 11 at the lowered position, and is located directly below the cutter 12 in the cylinder 11 at the raised position. However, the lower end portion of the cylindrical body 11 is formed with an opening 11 a having a lower opening on one long side corresponding to the downstream side of the discharge conveyor 20.

  The transfer conveyor 30 is disposed on the downstream side of the discharge conveyor 20. The endless conveyor belt 31 of the transfer conveyor 30 is formed to have the same effective width as the conveyor belt 21 of the discharge conveyor 20, and is hung on the lower drive roller 32, the upper guide plate 33, and the intermediate guide rollers 34, 34. A horizontal conveying surface is formed at the upper end via the guide plate 33. The transfer conveyor 30 is assembled to the fixed frame 35, and the transfer surface of the transfer conveyor 30 is at the same level as the transfer surface of the discharge conveyor 20 in the lowered position. The transfer conveyor 30 is driven by a variable speed motor (not shown).

  On the downstream side of the transfer conveyor 30, a transport conveyor 41 for the next process is disposed. The transport conveyor 41 is formed to have the same effective width as the discharge conveyor 20 and the transfer conveyor 30. However, the illustrated conveyer 41 illustrates a breaking process for making cotton tofu, and a breaker 42 for continuously breaking the solidified material of the tofu material W3 on the conveyer 41 is attached. The conveyor 41 is operated according to a predetermined line speed by a variable speed motor (not shown).

  The operation of such a tofu material continuous coagulation apparatus is, for example, as shown in the flowchart of FIG. However, in the flowchart of FIG. 3, as shown in FIG. 1, the discharge conveyor 20 is lowered to the lowered position at the same level as the transfer conveyor 30, and the cutter 12 is advanced into the cylinder 11 to close the lower part of the cylinder 11. On the other hand, soymilk W1 and coagulant W2 are prepared in the soymilk tank 15 and the coagulant tank 16, respectively, and an auxiliary pipe 13a that almost reaches the cutter 12 is attached to the exit side of the nozzle 13 for the tofu material W3. (FIG. 4), and start when preparation is completed.

  Therefore, firstly, the pumps P1 and P2 are operated so that the soymilk W1 and the coagulant W2 are quantitatively supplied, and the tofu material W3 is injected all at once to the vicinity of the upper end of the cylinder 11 through the static mixer 14, the nozzle 13 and the auxiliary pipe 13a. 3 (step (1) in FIG. 3, hereinafter, simply indicated as (1), two-dot chain line in FIG. 4). At this time, the auxiliary pipe 13a prevents harmful bubbles from being generated in the tofu material W3 injected into the cylinder 11. The mixing ratio of the soy milk W1 and the coagulant W2 of the tofu material W3 can be set by adjusting the discharge ratio of the pumps P1 and P2. Subsequently, the elapse of the solidification time of the tofu material W3 in the cylinder 11 is waited (2), the auxiliary pipe 13a in the cylinder 11 is removed, and the subsequent substantial work is started. However, you may remove the auxiliary pipe 13a before progress of coagulation | solidification time.

  When the coagulation time of the tofu material W3 in the cylinder 11 has elapsed (2), the discharge conveyor 20 is raised to the raised position directly below the cutter 12 via the linear actuators 26 and 26 (FIG. 5). In addition, the soymilk W1 and the coagulant W2 are supplied via the pumps P1 and P2, and the metered injection of the tofu material W3 is started and continued continuously thereafter (3). A cutting process for cutting out the tofu material W3 is carried out (4).

  That is, when the cutter 12 is retracted out of the cylinder 11 via the cylinder 12a (FIG. 6), all of the tofu material W3 in the cylinder 11 is transferred onto the conveying surface of the discharge conveyor 20. Therefore, when the discharge conveyor 20 is lowered to the intermediate position via the linear actuators 26, 26 (FIG. 7), the tofu material W3 in the cylinder 11 is lowered together with the discharge conveyor 20, so that the cylinder The cutter 12 is advanced into the cylinder 11 through 12a (FIG. 8), and the solidified lower end of the tofu material W3 is cut to a predetermined thickness to form a sheet-like product W4 on the conveying surface of the discharge conveyor 20. Can be cut out. That is, the intermediate position of the discharge conveyor 20 is set below the cutter 12 by an amount corresponding to the predetermined thickness of the product W4.

  Thereafter, when the discharge conveyor 20 is lowered to the lowered position (FIG. 9), the product W4 on the discharge conveyor 20 is lowered to the same level as the transfer conveyor 30. Therefore, when the discharge conveyor 20 and the transfer conveyor 30 are operated at high speed synchronously, the product W4 on the discharge conveyor 20 can be quickly discharged onto the transfer conveyor 30 through the opening 11a at the lower end of the cylindrical body 11. ((5), FIG. 10).

  When the product W4 on the discharge conveyor 20 is discharged onto the transfer conveyor 30 ((6), FIG. 11), the speed of the transfer conveyor 30 is decreased in accordance with the line speed of the transfer conveyor 41 in the next process, and the transfer conveyor 41 Is started at a line speed, and a transfer operation for transferring the product W4 on the transfer conveyor 30 onto the transfer conveyor 41 is started (7). In addition, the conveyance conveyor 41 continues the operation | movement by line speed after that. Further, the discharge conveyor 20 is stopped and raised to the raised position.

  Thereafter, the process proceeds to the next cutting step of the tofu material W3 (8). That is, the cutter 12 is retracted out of the cylinder 11 (FIG. 12), and the tofu material W3 in the cylinder 11 is transferred onto the discharge conveyor 20 at the raised position. At the same time, while continuing the transfer operation of the product W4 from the transfer conveyor 30 onto the transfer conveyor 41, the discharge conveyor 20 is lowered to the intermediate position (FIG. 13), and the cutter 12 is advanced into the cylindrical body 11 for the next operation. The sheet-like product W4 is cut out on the discharge conveyor 20 (FIG. 14). Thereafter, the discharge conveyor 20 is lowered to the lowered position (FIG. 15), and the next product W4 on the discharge conveyor 20 is kept at the same level as the transfer conveyor 30, and the preceding product W4 on the transfer conveyor 30 is moved to the next process. Waiting for transfer onto the conveyor 41 (9).

  When the rear end of the preceding product W4 passes through the transition part of the transfer conveyor 30 and the transfer conveyor 41 (9), the discharge conveyor 20 and the transfer conveyor 30 are operated at high speed in synchronization, and the product W4 on the discharge conveyor 20 is transferred to the transfer conveyor. 30 is quickly discharged onto (30) (FIG. 16). Therefore, when the front end of the succeeding product W4 discharged onto the transfer conveyor 30 comes into contact with the rear end of the preceding product W4 on the transfer conveyor 41 ((11), FIG. 17), the speed of the transfer conveyor 30 is set to the transfer conveyor. 41, the transfer of the succeeding product W4 is started while continuing the preceding products W4 and W4 integrally (12), and the discharge conveyor 20 is stopped and raised to the raised position. Thereafter, returning to the operation of step (8) and FIG. 12, the operations of steps (8) to (12) may be repeated.

  When one or both of the soymilk W1 in the soymilk tank 15 and the coagulant W2 in the coagulant tank 16 are exhausted, the pumps P1 and P2 are stopped, and the quantitative injection of the tofu material W3 started in step (3) is completed. . Also, after completing the quantitative injection of the tofu material W3, when all of the tofu material W3 in the cylinder 11 is discharged as products W4, W4..., The repetitive operations of steps (8) to (12) in FIG. When the last product W4 passes through all the lines on the downstream side of the conveyor 41, the operation of the entire line is terminated. The fixed injection of the tofu material W3 by the pumps P1 and P2 is performed at the liquid level of the tofu material W3 in the cylinder 11 during one cycle of the cutting and discharging operation of the product W4 by the cutter 12, the discharge conveyor 20 and the transfer conveyor 30. It is preferable to set the fluctuation to be equal to or less than the predetermined thickness of the product W4. However, the tofu material W3 may be intermittently injected instead of continuously injecting into the cylinder 11 as long as the fluctuation range of the liquid level in the cylinder 11 can be appropriately controlled.

  An example of the specifications of the continuous coagulation apparatus is as follows. That is, assuming that the production capacity of cotton tofu of 90 × 100 × 45 mm, weight 400 g, dehydration rate 60%, and cotton tofu production capacity of 3000 cc / hour and a line speed of 450 mm / min is assumed, the vertical and horizontal height of the cylinder 11 is 300. × 1000 × 1500mm, product W4 vertical and horizontal thickness 300 × 1000 × 75mm weight 22.5kg (equivalent to 33 cotton tofu), solidification time of tofu material W3 in cylinder 11 is 12 minutes, storage amount is 18 of product W4 Equivalent to the number of sheets, and the product W4 cut-out cycle time is 40 seconds / sheet.

  The present invention can be applied to a wide range of applications for continuously producing any tofu product such as cotton tofu, soft tofu, silken tofu, filled tofu and the like, or a secondary processed product thereof.

W3 ... Tofu material W4 ... Product 11 ... Cylinder 12 ... Cutter 20 ... Discharge conveyor 30 ... Transfer conveyor 41 ... Conveyor

Patent Applicant International Frozen Fund

Claims (5)

  A vertically long cylindrical body having a rectangular cross-section for injecting tofu material to solidify into a tofu tissue, a cutter installed at the lower part of the cylindrical body, a discharge conveyor that can be moved up and down under the cylindrical body, The cutter, the discharge conveyor, and the transfer conveyor sequentially cut out products of a predetermined thickness from the lower side of the cylindrical body and discharge them onto the transfer conveyor. A continuous coagulation device for tofu materials.   The cutter moves horizontally into the cylinder to cut the tofu material in the cylinder, closes the lower part of the cylinder, and retreats outside the cylinder to open the lower part of the cylinder. The continuous coagulation apparatus for tofu material according to claim 1.   The said discharge conveyor forms the horizontal conveyance surface which adapts the cross-sectional shape of the said cylindrical body, The continuous solidification apparatus of the tofu material of Claim 1 or Claim 2 characterized by the above-mentioned.   The discharge conveyor is configured such that the conveying surface reaches a lowered position at the same level as the conveying surface of the transfer conveyor, from an elevated position immediately below the cutter, through an intermediate position below the cutter corresponding to a predetermined thickness of the product. The continuous solidification apparatus for tofu materials according to claim 3, wherein the tofu material is moved up and down.   The said transfer conveyor discharge | emits the product from the said discharge conveyor, and transfers it to the conveyance conveyor of the next process, The continuous solidification apparatus of the tofu material in any one of Claim 1 thru | or 4 characterized by the above-mentioned.

Images