JPH11346737A - Cooler with ice water - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a cooler with ice water capable of suitably changing the positional relationship of an ice making unit and a cooling tank according to installation conditions and improving the operating efficiency by separably coupling the ice making unit to the cooling tank. SOLUTION: This cooler 4 with ice water is obtained by installing an ice making unit 25 for feeding ice into a cooling tank 15 and separably coupling the ice making unit 25 to the cooling tank 15 in the cooler 4 with the ice water equipped with the cooling tank 15 for storing the ice water and cooling foods charged into the cooling tank 15. An operation panel 27 for the ice making unit 25 can preferably be replaced from the front surface to the rear surface.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a cooling machine using ice water for use in a cooking apparatus for processing and cooking food.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when foods such as soups, curries, and stews are cooked in a relatively large amount, a kettle (steam-heated jacket) disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-8379 (A47J27 / 17). The work is done using a kettle). Then, the cooked food is filled into the bag by a predetermined amount by a filling device, and the packed food is cooled by a cooler.

In this case, an ice water cooler is used as the cooler. That is, the ice water cooler includes a cooling tank (adiabatic water tank) opened on the upper surface and an ice making unit for putting ice into the cooling tank. The ice making unit is filled with a predetermined amount of water in the cooling tank. The ice is generated at and charged to store a predetermined amount of ice water. Then, a bagged food having a high temperature is put into the ice water and cooled rapidly.

[0004]

By the way, the kettle, the filling device, and the cooling device (hereinafter, ice water cooling device) are arranged along the flow in which the work proceeds. That is, the kettle, the filling device, and the ice water cooler are arranged in this order. In these arrangements, the kettle may be located on the rightmost side depending on the installation location (normal kitchen), or may be located on the left side.

Therefore, when the arrangement of the cooling tank and the ice making unit of the ice water cooler is fixed, that is, for example, the ice making unit is fixed to the left side of the cooling tank assuming that the kettle comes to the rightmost side. In this case, since the filling device is arranged on the right side of the ice water cooler, the ice making unit does not hinder the movement of food from the filling device to the cooling tank, but the kettle is restricted by the installation location restrictions as described above. In the case of the leftmost arrangement, since the filling device is located on the left side of the ice water cooler, the ice making unit obstructs the movement of food.

[0006] In this case, if the ice water cooler is installed in the opposite direction, the ice making unit is on the right side and is not in the way. However, since the operation panel of the ice making unit is usually mounted on the front, this operation is not performed. The panel is on the rear side, making operation extremely difficult.

If two types of ice making units are prepared, one on the left side and the other on the right side, in order to avoid this, the increase in the number of models will complicate the production and management. There was a problem.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned conventional technical problem, and has an ice water cooling system in which the positional relationship between an ice making unit and a cooling tank can be appropriately changed according to installation conditions. The purpose is to provide a machine.

[0009]

The ice water cooler of the present invention comprises:
A cooling tank for storing ice water is provided, and an ice making unit for supplying ice into the cooling tank for cooling food put in the cooling tank is provided.The ice making unit is separated into cooling tanks. It is a possible combination.

According to the present invention, in an ice water cooler having a cooling tank for storing ice water and cooling the food put in the cooling tank, an ice making unit for supplying ice into the cooling tank is provided in the cooling tank. Since it is detachably connected, the positional relationship between the cooling tank and the ice making unit can be changed.

[0011] This makes it possible to change the position of the ice making unit with respect to the cooling tank in accordance with the installation state of the ice water cooler, thereby facilitating the work of feeding food.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the above-mentioned ice water cooler, the operation panel of the ice making unit can be replaced with a front surface and a rear surface of the ice making unit.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, in addition to the above, since the operation panel of the ice making unit can be replaced on the front and rear sides of the ice making unit, the operation panel is mounted on the front side in the installed state. It becomes possible.

Thus, even if the position of the ice making unit is changed, its operability can be maintained satisfactorily.

[0015]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a system configuration diagram of a cooking apparatus 1 as an embodiment using an ice water cooler 4 of the present invention. The cooking apparatus 1 according to the embodiment is installed in a kitchen of a hospital or a cafeteria, and has a kettle 2 that is a steam-type jacketed kettle for heating and cooking fluid foods, such as soups, curries, and stews. A packing station (filling device) 3 for filling the food cooked in the kettle 2 into a resin bag B made of polyethylene or the like, and an ice water cooler 4 of the present invention for cooling the food packed in the packing station 3 It is composed of

The kettle 2 has a double structure including an inner kettle and an outer kettle, and a stirrer (not shown) is removably inserted into the inner kettle. By supplying the heating steam between the inner and outer pots, the food is cooked while being stirred by the stirrer in the inner pot.

One end of a flexible hose 7 is connected to the bottom of the kettle 2, and the other end of the flexible hose 7 is connected to a pump device 8 provided in the packing station 3. The pump device 8 is driven by a motor, sucks cooked food from the kettle 2 via the flexible hose 7, and conveys the food to the filling valve 11 via the filling pipe 9.

An upper surface of the packing station 3 is a work table, on which a belt conveyor (not shown) is disposed. Above the conveyor, a mouth of the bag is sealed. A panel 12 having a seal / printing device for printing a food name or the like is provided.

A control device 13 is provided on the front surface of the panel 12 of the packing station 3.
The controller 13 includes a temperature sensor 14 composed of platinum, a thermocouple, or the like for detecting the food temperature (food core temperature in the kettle) in the kettle 2 as a channel (Ch) 1.
A similar temperature sensor 16 for detecting the temperature of the food passing through the filling pipe 9 (the core temperature of the food immediately before filling) is connected as a channel (Ch) 2.

Further, the filling amount of the bag B is set in the control device 13 and the control device 1 is controlled in accordance with the set filling amount.
3 controls the motor of the pump device 8. in this case,
The control device 13 controls the rotation speed (frequency) of the motor of the pump device 8 by an inverter (rotation speed adjusting means).

On the other hand, the ice water cooler 4 is opened on the upper surface as shown in FIG. 2 and has left and right adiabatic water tanks 15 as cooling tanks for storing ice water (cold water), and a removable ice tank for generating chip-shaped ice. The ice making unit 25 includes a so-called auger type ice making machine 34 (see FIG. 4). The ice making unit 25 is detachably attached to the right or left side (left side in the embodiment) of the insulated water tank 15 with a bolt (not shown), whereby the ice making unit 25 and the insulated water tank 15 are provided in a separable manner. A circulating pump (not shown) for circulating ice water in the insulated water tank 15 is provided below the ice making unit 25.

An ice discharge unit 26 is provided on a side surface of the ice making unit 25 and extends above the adiabatic water tank 15. Chip-like ice generated by the ice making machine 34 is used for the ice discharge unit 26. And is charged into the insulated water tank 15.

A control panel 27 as a detachable operation panel is attached to the front of the ice making unit 25, and the control panel 27 is provided with the same control device 17 as described above. The control panel 27 is detached from the front surface of the ice making unit 25 and is replaced on the rear surface of the ice making unit 25 together with the control device 17.

Here, a functional block diagram of the control device 17 is shown in FIG. The control device 17 is constituted by a general-purpose microcomputer 28. The microcomputer 28 has a key input unit 29 as input means, a water supply temperature sensor 31 for detecting a water supply temperature to the ice making machine 34,
Ambient temperature sensor 32 for detecting the ambient temperature of ice machine 34
And an ice storage sensor 33 for detecting the amount of ice stored in the insulated water tank 15 (these are collectively shown in FIG. 1), and a temperature sensor 18 for detecting the temperature of the input food, are connected to each other. The output of 28 is connected to the ice making machine 34 and the liquid crystal display 36.

The ice storage sensor 33 is connected to the ice discharge unit 2.
6, which detects the amount of ice that has been thrown into the insulated water tank 15 by detecting ice passing therethrough by infrared rays. Further, when the water supply temperature sensor 31 and the ambient temperature sensor 32 are originally attached to the ice making machine 34, they may be used.

With the above configuration, the flow of the preparation work of the ice water cooler 4 and the work of cooking, filling and cooling the food using the cooking device 1 will be described. The preparation operation of the ice water cooler 4 is controlled by the control device 17 in advance. First, the operator sets the work start time of the next day in the memory of the microcomputer 28 through the key input unit 29. Also, whether to use the cooling water on the next day without discarding the cooling water of the current day (the previous day when viewed from the next day) and the cooking recipe of the next day are similarly set in the memory from the key input unit 29. When using cooling water on the day,
When the amount of the cooling water is adjusted to the predetermined water level and the cooling water of the day is not used, water of the predetermined water level is newly placed in the adiabatic water tank 15.

When the above data is set, the microcomputer 28 next takes in the temperature of the water supply to the ice making machine 34 from the water supply temperature sensor 31 and takes in the ambient temperature of the ice making machine 34 from the ambient temperature sensor 32. Then, based on the data set as described above and the temperature taken in from each of the sensors 31 and 32, the operation time of the ice making machine 34 necessary to generate the optimal amount of ice for the cooling operation on the next day is calculated.
The correlation between each temperature and the ice making capacity of the ice making machine 34 (the amount of ice making per unit time) is obtained in advance by experiments and set in the microcomputer 28.

Then, the microcomputer 28 determines the ice making start time by back-calculating the operation time of the ice making machine 34 from the set work start time of the next day. Then, when the ice making start time comes, the operation of the ice maker 34 is automatically started. As a result, water is poured into the insulated water tank 15 of the ice water cooler 4, and the ice making unit 2 is provided from the day before.
The ice is supplied by the ice maker 34 of No. 5.

On the other hand, water, foodstuffs, seasonings, and the like serving as ingredients for cooking are charged into the kettle 2, and heated steam is supplied between the inner and outer kettles as described above, whereby the kettle is stirred by an agitator in the inner kettle. Cook food while cooking. Here, by heating at least at + 70 ° C. for 2 minutes or more,
Food hygiene can be maintained.

When the cooking of the food is completed, a valve device (not shown) provided at the bottom of the kettle 2 is opened, and the flexible hose 7 and the inside of the inner kettle of the kettle 2 are communicated. In this state, the motor of the pump device 8 is controlled by the control device 13, and the pump device 8 is driven to suck food from the kettle 2 into the flexible hose 7 and transport the food from the filling pipe 9 to the filling valve 11. Starting of the motor of the pump device 8 is performed by a foot switch (not shown) provided at the bottom of the packing station 3.

On the other hand, the bag B is addressed to the filling valve 11, and the tip of the valve is inserted and placed in the bag B. This allows
The food conveyed from the pump device 8 is filled into the bag B from the filling valve 11.

After a predetermined amount of food is filled in the bag B, the mouth of the bag B is sealed (sealed) by a sealing / printing device in the panel 12 of the packing station 3 to perform predetermined printing. Then, the bags B are successively stacked on a transport cart (not shown) by the belt conveyor.

When a predetermined number of bags B are loaded on the carrier, the bag B moves to the ice water cooler 4. Then, the bag B is put into the ice water in the insulated water tank 15. Thereafter, in the insulated water tank 15, the packaged food is cooled from the initial temperature of + 70 ° C to + 80 ° C or more to 0 ° C to + 3 ° C within 90 minutes. This prevents the growth of bacteria in the food.

The control device 13 records and holds the food temperature during cooking, which is detected (measured) by the temperature sensor 14, and the food temperature immediately before filling through the filling pipe 9, which is detected by the temperature sensor 16. Further, the microcomputer 28 of the control device 17 records and holds the temperature of the food in the loaded bag B detected by the temperature sensor 18 in the memory.

Next, the actual installation state of the cooking device 1 will be described. As described above, since the flow of the food is transferred from the kettle 2 to the packing station 3 and then from the packing station 3 to the ice water cooler 4, when the kettle 2 is the rightmost as shown in FIG. Packing station 3 is installed on the left side,
Further, an ice water cooler 4 is installed on the left side.

In such a case, since the ice making unit 25 is attached to the left side of the insulated water tank 15 as in the embodiment,
There is no hindrance to the work of transporting the food from the packing station 3 and putting it into the insulated water tank 15.

On the other hand, depending on the installation location, as shown in FIG. 6, the kettle 2 may be located on the left side, the packing station 3 is installed on the right side, and the ice water cooler 4 is further installed on the right side. In such a case, if the ice making unit 25 is mounted on the left side of the insulated water tank 15 as in the case of FIG. 2, the ice making unit 25 will be on the packing station 3 side.
When the food is transported and put into the insulated water tank 15 from above, the ice making unit 25 becomes an obstacle.

In this case, the bolts are removed at the installation site, the ice making unit 25 is separated from the insulated water tank 15, and the ice making unit 25 is replaced on the right side of the insulated water tank 15. Further, the control panel 17 is also removed and replaced on the rear surface (see FIG. 7). With such a configuration, since the ice making unit 25 comes on the opposite side of the packing station 3, the packing station 3
It does not obstruct the work of transporting food from the container and putting it into the insulated water tank 15 (see FIG. 6).

Even if the position of the ice making unit 25 is changed, the control panel 17 comes to the front side, so that there is no problem in operability. Thereby, two types of ice water coolers 4
Can be dealt with by changing the positional relationship between the ice making unit 25 and the control panel 17 at the installation site.

[0040]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, a cooling tank for storing ice water is provided, and ice is supplied to the cooling tank in an ice water cooler for cooling food put in the cooling tank. Since the ice making unit is detachably connected to the cooling tank, the positional relationship between the cooling tank and the ice making unit can be changed.

Thus, the position of the ice making unit with respect to the cooling tank is changed in accordance with the installation state of the ice water cooler, so that the operation of feeding and lifting the food can be facilitated.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, in addition to the above, since the operation panel of the ice making unit can be replaced on the front and rear sides of the ice making unit, the operation panel is mounted on the front side in the installed state. It becomes possible.

Thus, even if the position of the ice making unit is changed, its operability can be maintained satisfactorily.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of a cooking apparatus as an embodiment to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the ice water cooler of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of the control device of the ice water cooler of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an exploded front view of the ice water cooler of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a view showing an actual installation state of the cooking device of the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a view showing another installation state of the cooking device.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view of the ice water cooler in the installation state of FIG. 6;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Cooking apparatus 2 Kettle 3 Packing station 4 Ice water cooler 7 Flexible hose 15 Insulated water tank (cooling tank) 17 Controller 25 Ice making unit 27 Control panel (operation panel) 34 Ice making machine B bag

Claims (2)

[Claims] An ice water cooler for cooling iced water provided in a cooling tank for storing ice water, comprising: an ice making unit for supplying ice into the cooling tank; An ice water cooler characterized by being separably connected to a cooling tank. 2. The ice water cooler according to claim 1, wherein an operation panel of the ice making unit is replaceable on a front surface and a rear surface of the ice making unit.