JP7414607B2 - Cereal-like granules and their production method - Google Patents

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to grain-like granules and methods for producing the same.

In recent years, with the diversification of lifestyles, products such as drinks, gummies, and noodles that are said to be a complete meal that allows you to easily get the nutrients you need for a day have come on the market. These products contain only one-third of the daily required amount of essential nutrients listed in the nutritional labeling standard values established by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and the dietary intake standards for Japanese people also established by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. It is contained in an amount of 1 or more. Apart from this, there are also products such as semi-complete foods that are almost complete foods that lack only a few types of nutrients, and supplements that supplement only specific nutrients. There are many foods on the market that can supplement this (see Patent Documents 1 and 2).

Special Publication No. 2009-528837 Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-181447

By the way, the above-mentioned food is a food product in which new ingredients are added to the ingredients of the original raw material, and the ingredient composition can be freely set. The method of changing the component composition is also relatively simple. For example, in the case of a drink, new ingredients may be added to a liquid serving as a solvent and mixed. Moreover, gummy bears, noodles, etc. may be formed by adding new ingredients to raw materials and then going through normal manufacturing processes. As described above, most of them have the aspect that it is relatively easy to add necessary components to the formulation and remove unnecessary components.

On the other hand, foodstuffs such as rice are not foodstuffs whose component compositions can be changed freely. This is because rice and other foods are not food products that are formed by mixing multiple raw materials. Therefore, it is difficult to change the component composition. Furthermore, since water is used when cooking rice, it is also possible to dissolve new ingredients in water. However, there are problems with some new ingredients, such as poor solubility in water or the intended amount of ingredients not being absorbed into rice.

An object of the present invention is to provide grain-like granules whose component composition can be freely set and whose appearance is similar to the real thing.

In view of the above-mentioned problems, the inventors have investigated a method for producing grain-like granules that can freely set the ingredient composition and that look similar to the real thing. Furthermore, we investigated a method for producing grain-like granules that is superior not only in shape but also in production suitability. As for the ingredient composition, by adding new ingredients and making the kneaded product into noodle strips, and by cutting the kneaded product twice with a cutting blade, we realized that there would be as little variation in shape as possible, and we could mass-produce it at once. This discovery led to the completion of the present invention.

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a method for producing grain-like granules, which includes a first cutting step in which a noodle strip is cut with a first cutting blade, and a second cutting step in which the noodle strings cut out in the first cutting step are It is characterized by comprising a second cutting step of cutting with two cutting blades.

According to this configuration, grain-like granules can be easily produced in large quantities by cutting the noodle strip twice.

In the above configuration, it is preferable that the first cutting edge and/or the second cutting edge are kitchen knife blades. Further, it is preferable that the pitch of the second cutting blade is narrower than the thickness of the cut noodle strings. Furthermore, it is preferable to straighten the noodle strings cut out in the first cutting step and perform the second cutting step after horizontally rotating them by 90 degrees. Here, the term "knife blade" refers to a cutting blade whose cutting edge is chamfered at an acute angle, and is sometimes called a thin blade or a chamfered blade in addition to a kitchen knife blade.

According to this configuration, the shape can be made closer to the shape of a grain.

According to the present invention, it is possible to provide grain-like granules in which the component composition can be freely set, which has not existed in the past. Furthermore, by using a knife blade, it is possible to provide grain-like granules that look more realistic.

It is a graph showing the shape of grain-like granules under each cutting condition, where the vertical axis is the noodle thickness and the horizontal axis is the pitch of the second cutting blade.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments for carrying out the present invention will be described. Note that the embodiment described below is an example of a typical embodiment of the present invention, and the scope of the present invention should not be interpreted narrowly thereby.

For the preparation of the raw materials in this embodiment, a method for producing raw noodle strings that is used in the production of instant noodles and the like can be used. Specifically, the main raw material and the auxiliary raw material are mixed, water is added, and the mixture is kneaded. Here, wheat flour, rice flour, starch, etc. can be used as the raw material flour that is the main raw material. As auxiliary raw materials, salt, thickeners, gluten, egg white, pigments, other nutrients, etc. can be used as necessary. Note that necessary nutrients include vitamins, calcium, and the like. Alternatively, the auxiliary raw material may be dissolved in water.

Next, the kneaded material is mixed to form a dough, and the dough is made into a noodle sheet by compounding or the like. Subsequently, the noodle strip is rolled out thinly by a rolling process. Then, by cutting the rolled noodle strips using a cutting roll, raw noodle strings can be obtained. Note that the thickness after rolling and the count of the cut noodle strings may be appropriately set depending on the shape to be formed, and are not particularly limited. Further, as the cutting roll, there are a round blade, a square blade, a kitchen knife blade, etc., and among these, a kitchen knife blade is preferable. Furthermore, the noodle strings may be cut out in a straight shape, or may be cut out repeatedly in a circular manner. On the other hand, because of the process described below, it is preferable that the noodles are not wavy.

Noodle strings that are cut straight from the beginning are cut into a predetermined length, and noodle strings that are repeatedly cut in a circular pattern are first stretched out into a straight shape and then cut to a predetermined length to form bundles of noodle strings. create. In addition, as a method of stretching the noodle strings into a straight shape, there is a method of transferring the noodle strings to a high-speed belt conveyor. At this time, it is preferable to transfer multiple times.

Next, the bundle of noodle strings cut into a predetermined length is rotated 90 degrees in the horizontal direction and passed through the cutting blade roll again. Here, the predetermined length is determined by the width of the second cutting blade roll. Preferably, the second cutting blade roll is a kitchen knife blade. Further, the pitch of the second cutting blade roll varies depending on the desired grain shape. For example, if the ratio of the second cutting blade roll to the noodle strip thickness is 1:1.8 to 2.1, a grain-like granulated product like short-grain rice can be obtained. If the ratio of second cutting blade roll:noodle strip thickness is 1:2.4 to 2.8, grain-like granules like long-grain rice can be obtained.

Moreover, as a method of stretching the noodle strings into a straight shape and cutting them to a predetermined length, the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 6242165 may be used. According to this technique, by using the chute member, the cut noodle strings can be swung in the width direction of the chute member. By cutting the folded portions of the noodle strings deflected in the width direction of the chute member, a bundle of noodle strings with uniform length can be obtained.

Subsequently, the cut material that has passed through the second cutting blade roll is subjected to a moist heat treatment. Here, the "moist heat treatment" referred to in the present application is included in the present concept as long as it is a moist heat treatment that can gelatinize starch. For example, the present concept also includes boiling treatment using a boiling tank, steaming treatment using saturated steam and/or superheated steam, and treatment with high-temperature hot air after adding moisture to the noodle strings. Note that in the present application, it is preferable to use superheated steam.

The temperature of the moist heat steam used in the present invention is preferably in the range of 100°C to 220°C, more preferably in the range of 100°C to 190°C, and even more preferably in the range of 130°C to 190°C. In addition, the moist heat treatment time according to the present invention is preferably 15 to 45 seconds when using saturated steam. On the other hand, when using a high temperature fluid of 130° C. to 220° C., it is preferably carried out for 5 to 40 seconds, more preferably 5 to 30 seconds, in order to avoid overdrying.

When superheated steam is used, the superheated steam is directly or indirectly sprayed onto the noodle strings, or the noodle strings are passed through a chamber filled with superheated steam.

In the present invention, the moist heat treatment step may be performed multiple times. The second and subsequent moist heat treatment steps are not particularly limited, and existing techniques can be used. Further, a step of adding moisture may be provided between each moist heat treatment step. Methods for applying moisture include spraying, showering, immersion, and the condensation phenomenon that occurs when a low-temperature substance is placed in a high-temperature environment.

(drying process)
In the present invention, the cut product that has undergone the moist heat treatment step may be subjected to a drying step, if necessary. Here, the type of drying process is not particularly limited, and any drying process commonly used in the production of instant noodles can be applied. Specifically, in addition to frying (deep-fried tofu) drying processing, non-frying drying processing such as hot air drying, vacuum freeze-drying, microwave drying, and blow drying at low temperatures can be mentioned. Among these, hot air drying treatment is preferred. Long-term shelf life can be improved by going through the drying process.

The grain-like granules produced by the above method had a grain-like appearance and flavor when eaten.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in more detail based on Examples. Here, short-grain rice will be used as an example of grain-like granules. However, the present invention is not limited to this.

First, 420 ml of water to which 20 g of common salt was added was added to a mixed powder of 700 g of wheat flour and 300 g of starch and kneaded to form a dough. Subsequently, the dough was compounded and rolled to a thickness of 2.8 to 2.9 mm to obtain noodle sheets.

(Consideration of cutting blade)
First, we investigated the optimal cutting blade for cutting into the shape of grain-like granules. A study was conducted using a combination of square blades, round blades, and knife blades. The number of each cutting blade was No. 9. The evaluation was determined according to the following criteria. The results are shown in Table 〇.
◎: Very similar to short-grain rice 〇: Similar to short-grain rice ×: Not similar to short-grain rice

As is clear from Table 1, the shape cut out when the knife blades were combined was closest to the shape of short-grain rice. On the other hand, when a square blade was used for the first or second time, the cut shape did not resemble short-grain rice. Therefore, in the present invention, a square blade is considered to be unsuitable.

Next, we focused on the thickness of the noodle belt and the pitch of the second cutting blade roll as a measure to bring the shape closer to that of short-grain rice. In addition, based on the above results, a kitchen knife blade was used as the cutting blade.
The trial production conditions were as shown in Table 2.

The results of trial production according to the conditions in Table 2 are shown in FIG. In FIG. 1, the vertical axis is the thickness of the noodle strip (mm), and the horizontal axis is the pitch of the second cutting blade (mm), and is a plot of photographs of grain-like granules that were actually produced on a trial basis. As is clear from FIG. 1, trial production numbers 1, 3, 7, 11, and 13 had results close to the shape of short-grain rice. In addition, trial production numbers 5, 6, 10, and 12 had results close to the shape of long-grain rice. On the other hand, trial production numbers 2, 4, 8, and 9 had rectangular shapes that did not resemble either short-grain or long-grain rice. From this, if the ratio of the second cutting blade roll: noodle sheet thickness is 1:1.8 to 2.1, grain-like granules such as short-grain rice will be produced when the second cutting blade roll: noodles It has been found that when the ratio of band thickness is 1:2.4 to 2.8, grain-like granules like long-grain rice can be obtained.

Focusing on prototype numbers 2, 4, 7, 10, and 12, when the pitch of the second cutting blade is kept constant, the shape of grain-like granules changes from rectangular to short-grain as the thickness of the noodles increases. It can be seen that the shape of the rice is changing to that of long grain rice. On the other hand, focusing on trial production numbers 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, when the thickness of the noodle strip is kept constant, as the pitch width increases, the shape changes from long-grain rice to short-grain rice, and then to rectangular shape. You can see that the shape is changing.

As explained above, according to the present invention, grain-like granules can be obtained by cutting twice with the noodle strip cutting blade. It was also shown that by adjusting the thickness of the noodle belt and the pitch of the second cutting blade, it was possible to produce not only short-grain rice but also long-grain rice. As a result, the ingredient composition can be freely set, and grain-like granules that look similar to the real thing can be provided.

Claims (4)

A method for producing grain-like granules, the method comprising:
a first cutting step of cutting the noodle strip with a first cutting blade;
A second cutting step in which the noodle strings cut out in the first cutting step are stretched into a straight line, horizontally rotated by 90 degrees, and then cut out with a second cutting blade;
A method for producing grain-like granules consisting of The method for producing grain-like granules according to claim 1, wherein the first cutting blade and/or the second cutting blade are kitchen knife blades. The method for producing grain-like granules according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the pitch of the second cutting blade is narrower than the thickness of the cut noodle strings. A grain-like granule produced by the production method according to any one of claims 1 to 3 .

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