JPH05304888A - Method for continuously producing chopped cheeses and its apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a chopped cheese having a uniform shape while preventing the loss from occurring by extruding a thermally melted cheese into the form of a thin sheet, cooling the extruded cheese and simultaneously or nearly simultaneously cutting the cheese in the flow direction and a direction different therefrom. CONSTITUTION:A thermally melted cheese is extruded with an extrusion unit 1, cooled with a cooling drum 2 to form a cheese 10 in the shape of a thin sheet, which is then fed to a cutter assembly 11 with conveyors 3 and 4. The cutter assembly has divided blades 6 and a spacer 7, etc., and the cheese is simultaneously or nearly simultaneously cut in the flow direction of the cheese or a direction different therefrom. Thereby, the objective chopped cheese is obtained.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for continuously producing shredded cheese.

[0002]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Conventionally, shredded cheese has been used for pizza pies, pizza toasts, gratin, salads and the like. Therefore, the "shredded cheese" referred to in the present invention means "shredded cheese" which is generally commercially available. This method of producing shredded cheese is a batch method because the block-shaped cheese that has already been produced is cut into an appropriate size, and this is put into a food slicer with a disc to be finely cut. Therefore, cheese that has already been produced and is in the form of blocks, such as when natural cheese is finely chopped as it is, this method may be used, but when using heat-melted cheese, heat-melted cheese is a block of 10 to 20 kg. It took a long time to fill the shape of cheese with cheese, cool it once to make a block of cheese, and then put this into a food slicer, which required at least one day for cooling.

[0003]

A method in which 10 to 20 kg of block-shaped cheese which has been melted by heating as described above is filled with the cheese, cooled to form block-shaped cheese, and then the block-shaped cheese is put into a food slicer However, cooling requires a long time, and when the product temperature is high, the structure of the cheese is soft, and a large amount of fine chips and the like are worn, which lowers the yield. Further, in such a method, there are problems that the process is complicated, it takes a long time, and the production efficiency is poor, and the shape of the cheese is uneven because it is cut by a rotary blade. The present invention has been invented in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a method and an apparatus capable of preventing the occurrence of wear and efficiently producing shredded cheese.

[0004]

The present invention provides the following method and apparatus for achieving the above object. That is, the melted cheese is extruded in a thin plate to be cooled, and the flow direction of the cheese and the direction different from the flow direction are simultaneously or simultaneously divided by almost at the same time by a method for continuously producing shredded cheese. There is a device for extruding the heated and melted cheese into a thin plate, a device for cooling the extruded cheese, and a means for dividing the cheese in a direction different from the cheese flow direction together with a means for dividing the cheese in the flow direction. An apparatus for continuously producing shredded cheese, which is characterized by comprising a dividing apparatus.

[0005]

[Function] The cheeses that have been heated and melted are continuously extruded in the shape of a thin plate and cooled to prevent the occurrence of wear by dividing the flow direction of the cheeses and the different direction at the same time or almost at the same time, and to improve the efficiency. To produce finely chopped cheese.

[0006]

EXAMPLES In the present invention, cheeses are heat-melted, natural cheeses with improved preservability, process cheese, cheese foods, foods containing milk as a main raw material, processed milk protein foods that are thermoplastics. Including. And the method of the present invention is to extrude the heated and melted cheese in a thin plate shape and to cool it, and to produce a shredded cheese by dividing the flow direction and the direction different from the flow direction at the same time or almost at the same time. Cheeses are heated and melted at a temperature of 63 ° C. or higher, preferably 75 ° C. or higher, and continuously extruded into a thin plate having a thickness of 0.2 mm to 15 mm and cooled. The cooling temperature at this time is 0 to 25 ° C., preferably 0 to 1 to facilitate the next step.
Bring to 5 ° C. The time required for cooling depends on the thickness of the cheese and the temperature of the refrigerant, but the desired temperature is reached in about 1 to 20 minutes. The thin plate-like cheese thus cooled is normally divided in the longitudinal direction and the transverse direction in sequence, but in the present invention, since the cheeses have a property of adhering to each other, if they are kept divided in the flow direction, they are entangled with each other. Therefore, it is characterized in that the division in the direction different from the flow direction is performed almost simultaneously with the division in the flow direction. In this way, shredded cheese is obtained.

The size of the shredded cheese at this time is, for example, 1 mm to 15 mm in width, like the commercially available shredded cheese.
A length of about 5 mm to 50 mm and a thickness of about 0.5 mm to 5 mm are generally used. Conventionally, a dice-shaped cheese cannot be made with a rotary blade of a food slicer, so that a separate cheese, for example, a block cheese is passed through a perforated plate into a cylindrical shape and cut into a dice shape. The present invention solves this problem all at once, and various types, especially dies, can be produced by the same machine. That is, in order to make a die, it is only necessary to make the extrusion thickness of cheeses, the dividing width in the flow direction and the direction different from the flow direction, here the division distance in the direction perpendicular to the flow direction, respectively, the same. Shredded cheese made by such a method produces almost no fine chips compared to those made by shaving with a rotating blade of a conventional food slicer, the yield is greatly increased and the shape is also uniform It is good. Further, in terms of work, the cooling time for the block cheese in the conventional batch system is greatly shortened, and the production is very efficient.

An apparatus for carrying out the above method is shown in FIG. FIG. 1 shows an apparatus 9 for extruding heat-melted cheese by an extrusion unit 1 and dividing it into cheese having a desired size. The cheese extruded from the extruding unit 1 is extruded along the cooling surface of the cooling drum 2 to be cooled, and the cooling drum 2 rotates at the supply speed while receiving the cheese supply. When the melted cheese comes into contact with the surface of the drum, it is cooled and solidified to form a thin plate-shaped cheese 10. The thickness of the thin cheeses is determined by the distance between the drum surface and the extrusion port of the extrusion unit 1, and the cooling temperature is determined by the discharge amount of the melted cheeses, the temperature of the cooling drum 2 and the rotation speed. The extruded cheese is extruded along the rotation direction of the cooling drum 2 and the illustrated one is extruded along the clockwise direction, but a cooling conveyor may be used instead of the cooling drum.

The thin plate-shaped cheese 10 formed as described above is sent to the conveyor 3 and further to the cutter assembly 11 by the conveyor 4. The cutter assembly 11 comprises a split blade 6 and spacers 5 and 7,
The spacers 5 and 7 are fixed to a frame (not shown) by shafts 15 and 14, and the split blades 6 and 6a are rotated by shafts 16 and 17. A plurality of split blades 6 and 6a fixed to the shafts 16 and 17 are provided so as to face each other in a zigzag shape in plan view.
The dividing blades 6 and 6a are in partial contact 18, and the contact portion 18 cuts the cheese in the flow direction. Dividing blade 6,
6a itself has sharp protrusions 12 and arcuate protrusions 13 alternately formed on its peripheral surface, the cheese is sent by the arcuate protrusions 13, and the cheese is divided by the sharp protrusions 12 in a direction different from the flow direction. .. Moreover, a cheese receiving surface 5a is formed on the spacer 5 corresponding to the dividing blade 6, and a cheese receiving surface 7a is formed on the spacer 7 corresponding to the dividing blade 6a. This is for facilitating the introduction of the thin plate-shaped cheese 10 before the division and for preventing the divided finely cut cheese after the division from wrapping around.

However, the width of the shredded cheese is divided into blades 6 and 6.
It is determined by the thickness of a, and the length is determined by the distance between the sharp protrusions 12, 12 protruding in a direction different from the flow direction. The dividing blades 6 and 6a are made of a corrosion-resistant material, for example, stainless steel, and the spacers 5 and 7 are also made of stainless steel or a hard synthetic resin. Vertical cutting of cheese, that is, cutting in the flow direction by the cutter assembly 11 as described above, is cut at the overlapping portions 18 of the dividing blades 6 and 6a, and horizontal cutting, that is, cutting in a direction different from the flowing direction, is performed by the dividing blade 6.
It is cut by the sharp protrusion 12 of 6a. Dividing blade 6,6
By making a thickness of a into a desired size, cheeses of a desired width can be obtained, and the length of the shredded cheese is a sharp protrusion different from the flow direction provided on the outer circumference of the dividing blades 6 and 6a. It is determined by the distance between 12 and 12, and the cheese is delivered by the arcuate protrusion 13. The cheese thus obtained having a predetermined length, thickness and width is packaged by a conventional method to give a product.

Examples will be described below. (Example 1) Crushed unripe gouda type cheese 30
40 kg xanthan gum and 40 locust bean gum as stabilizers in a cooker type melting pot.
g, 40 g of guar gum and 30 g of carrageenan, respectively, and 2 kg of water was added, and then heated at 50 rpm to 80 ° C. The heated and melted cheese was extruded from a nozzle onto a cooling drum and cooled to 12 ° C. with a thickness of about 3 mm. This cheese is continuously supplied to the shredded cheese manufacturing equipment, and the width is 3 m.
It was finely chopped to have a length of 20 mm. This cheese had good melting and stringing properties when cooked, and had little wear and a uniform shape.

(Example 2) 20 kg of ground Gouda cheese
And 10 kg of cheddar cheese are put in a kettle type melting pot, and 600 g of sodium polyphosphate as a molten salt is added to this.
And 1 kj of water were added, and the mixture was stirred and heated to 85 ° C. The heated and melted cheese was extruded from a nozzle onto a cooling drum and cooled to 10 ° C. with a thickness of about 8 mm. This cheese is 8m wide
It was cut into pieces each having a length of m and a length of 8 mm. The shredded processed cheese was good in that it had little wear and had a uniform shape.

(Example 3) 34.5 kg of crushed unripened gouda type cheese, 7.4 kg of rennet casein and 6.4 kg of soybean hydrogenated oil were put in a cutter type Stephanian melting pot, and 350 g of sodium citrate and 9 kg of water were added. After the addition, the mixture was stirred and heated to 80 ° C. The heated and melted cheese was extruded from a nozzle on a cooling conveyor and cooled to a temperature of 5 ° C. with a thickness of about 2 mm. This cheese was continuously supplied to a shredded cheese manufacturing apparatus so as to have a width of 5 mm and a length of 10 mm, and shredded to obtain shredded cheese food. This cheese was good in that it had little wear and had a uniform shape.
The wear rate (%) of the shredded cheese is shown in Table 1 below.

[0014]

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY According to the present invention, a sliced cheese can be efficiently produced by an apparatus for continuously extruding heat-melted cheese into a thin plate shape, cooling and cutting the sliced cheese. In addition, the cheeses produced can be prevented from being worn out, have a uniform shape, and can efficiently produce shredded cheese.

[Brief description of drawings]

1 is a perspective view of an apparatus for carrying out the method of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a horizontal sectional view of the cutter assembly of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a vertical sectional view of a split blade installed in a cutter assembly.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Extrusion unit 2 Cooling drum 5 Spacer 6 Dividing blade 6a Dividing blade 7 Spacer 11 Cutter assembly 12 Sharp protrusion 13 Arc-shaped protrusion

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A sliced cheese which is characterized in that heat-melted cheese is extruded into a thin plate and cooled, and the flow direction of the cheese and a direction different from the flow direction are divided simultaneously or almost at the same time. how to. 2. A device for extruding the heat-melted cheese into a thin plate, a device for cooling the extruded cheese, a device for dividing the cheese in the flow direction of the cheese, and a device for dividing the cheese in a direction different from the flow direction of the cheese. An apparatus for continuously producing shredded cheese, which is characterized by comprising a dividing apparatus including the above.