JPH0231937B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method for improving the loosening effect when loosening noodle strings using air blowing.

In the noodle manufacturing process, the main purpose of loosening the noodles is to fill them uniformly into an oval retainer.
The idea is to make the density of the noodle mass into a sparse state to improve the passage of heat carriers such as steam, hot air, and high-temperature oil in subsequent processes (steaming, drying, etc.). In order to achieve this goal, many techniques for loosening noodles have been developed, some of which utilize air pressure. For example, noodle strings cut to a predetermined length are dropped vertically through a shutter, and as they fall, pressurized gas is blown onto them in the horizontal direction of the L-shaped shutter, causing the noodle strings to hit the opposing side wall. By the way, there is a method (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 56-5062) in which a bundle of raw noodles is dropped in the vertical direction of a shooter, or a bundle of raw noodles is suspended in a fixed tube vertically, and the bundles are cut to a certain length from the lower end of the tube. There is a method (Japanese Patent Publication No. 49-28421) in which compressed air is injected diagonally downward into the interior of the cylinder and packed into a mold located at the bottom of the cylinder.
However, in the former case, there was a high possibility that the noodle strings would be damaged by abutting them against the side wall of the shooter with pressurized gas. In the latter case, the compressed air is powerfully blown only to a very limited part of the noodle string group, and as a result, the effect of loosening the noodle string group is expected to be effective in a very limited part of the noodle string group. It lacked the effect of almost completely loosening the whole thing.
In addition, these methods have the disadvantage that they do not provide enough loosening effect to fully satisfy the original purpose of loosening described above.

As a method for solving the above drawbacks, the present inventors have
When we tried a method of cutting the noodle strings into individual servings and blowing air through the noodle strings at the point when the noodle strings fall under their own weight to loosen them, we found that the method was quite promising for loosening the noodle strings. It was hot.

However, the present inventors were not satisfied with this and conducted research with the aim of further improving the effect of loosening the noodle strings by the above-mentioned air blowing. Conventionally, there has been a method of applying starch or oil to the noodle strings to improve the loosening effect of the noodles, thereby preventing the noodle strings from sticking to each other, but the present inventors have developed a method that does not use starch or oil. As a result of research on a method for improving the loosening effect of noodle strings, the object of the present invention is to apply air to the noodle strings in advance to harden their surfaces before loosening the noodle strings by air blowing. We obtained the knowledge that it is possible to achieve the following.

The gist of the present invention, which was completed based on these findings, is to cut noodle strips produced by a conventional method into noodle strings,
The obtained noodle string group is subjected to a wind blowing treatment to harden its surface, and then the noodle string group is loosened by blowing air when the noodle string group is dropped by its own weight. This is a method of loosening noodles.

The contents of the present invention will be explained below.

In the present invention, noodle sheets are first made from a noodle raw material such as wheat flour, and the method is to add water to the noodle raw material such as wheat flour, mix it to form a dough, and then roll it to obtain a noodle sheet. It can be manufactured according to conventional methods.
Next, the obtained noodle strips are cut into noodle strings using a noodle string cutting device to form noodle string groups. Thereafter, the group of noodle strings is transported to a loosening process by a belt conveyor or the like, but in the case of the present invention, the group of noodle strings is subjected to a wind blowing process from the noodle string cutting process to the loosening process. . The purpose of this air blowing treatment is to harden the surface of each noodle string in the group of noodle strings, thereby effectively loosening the noodle strings by air blowing in the subsequent process.
When the surface of each noodle string is hardened, the stickiness of the surface disappears, and as a result, it becomes possible to effectively prevent the noodle strings from adhering to each other. The surface hardening of each noodle string having such an effect occurs as the surface moisture of each noodle string evaporates due to the wind blowing treatment. Therefore, it is desirable that the degree of surface hardening necessary to effectively prevent each noodle string from adhering to each other is such that the water content of the noodle string decreases by 0.3 to 3.0% by weight (based on the weight of the noodle string). .

In addition, when performing wind blowing treatment on the noodle strings, it is preferable to process with warm air at about 35 to 65°C from the viewpoint of shortening the wind blowing treatment time. However, in this case, it is important to prevent the temperature of the noodle strings from rising excessively. As the temperature of the noodle strings rises, the noodle strings soften, and even if the noodle strings are loosened in the subsequent process, the density of the resulting noodle blocks remains sparse until the next process (steaming). , drying, etc.).

When performing wind blowing treatment under the above conditions, the wind speed is 1 to 3 m/s and the processing time is 10 to 30 m/s.
In order to achieve the object of the present invention, it is preferable to carry out the test within seconds.

The noodle strings that have been subjected to wind blowing treatment in this way are sent to the loosening process, but as mentioned above, the surface hardening of each noodle string effectively prevents the noodle strings from adhering to each other. Because of this, it is very easy to unravel. Therefore, the noodle strings can be loosened very effectively by an extremely simple method of blowing air onto the noodle strings as they fall under their own weight.

When loosening the noodle strings by blowing air, it is preferable to blow the air when the noodle strings are in a drooping state and also to blow air to both sides of the noodle strings in order to more effectively loosen the noodle strings.

The noodle strings loosened in this way are transported to the next process such as drying.

Next, a specific example of the method of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

A noodle strip A produced by a conventional method is cut into noodle strips using noodle strip cutting rolls 1 and 2 to obtain a noodle strip group B. The cut out noodle string group B is on belt conveyor 3
At this stage, the group B of noodle strings is blown by air from a blower 4 installed above the belt conveyor 3. The noodle string group B subjected to the air blowing process is guided to a noodle string cutting device via a guide roll 5. The noodle string cutting device consists of a cutting roll 7 having a cutting blade 6 and a receiving roll 8, and the noodle string group B is cut into a predetermined length here.
Thereafter, the cut noodle string group B falls by its own weight to the chute 9 located directly below the noodle string cutting device. At this time, the noodle string group B is loosened by air blowing from an air blowing port 11 provided on one side 10 of the chute 9. Note that the air outlet 11 is connected to an air blower (not shown) via an air duct 12. The noodle strings loosened by the air blowing are stored in a retainer 13 installed directly below the outlet of the chute 9.
It is transported to the next process by the chain conveyor 14.

The method of the present invention is as described above. According to this method, there is no need to apply starch or oil to the noodle strings in order to improve the loosening effect as in the conventional method, and it is not necessary to apply starch or oil to the noodle strings before the loosening process. By simply blowing air on the noodle strings at this stage, it is possible to achieve the same or even greater effect than when applying starch or oil. In addition, when loosening the noodle strings, in the case of the present invention, since the noodle strings are simply exposed to air, the noodle strings are not damaged, and furthermore, unlike the conventional method, compressed air is not used. It is possible to eliminate the drawback of local loosening of noodle strings due to use and improve the loosening effect.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a simplified process diagram showing a specific example of the method of the present invention.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1 Cut the noodle strips made by the conventional method into noodle strings,
The obtained noodle string group is subjected to a wind blowing treatment to harden its surface, and then the noodle string group is loosened by blowing air when the noodle string group is dropped by its own weight. How to loosen noodles.