Foods and beverages: apparatus – Means to treat food – By applying fluid
Reexamination Certificate
2002-01-29
2002-10-01
Simone, Timothy F. (Department: 1761)
Foods and beverages: apparatus
Means to treat food
By applying fluid
C099S483000, C099S486000, C099S600000, C099S606000, C099S609000, C099S615000, C099S617000, C241S007000, C241S014000, C241S074000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06457404
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for processing polished cereal such as polished rice to obtain no-bran cereal such as no-bran rice which requires no washing before cooking.
2. Description of Related Art
Processed polished rice, i.e., no-bran rice which requires no wash before cooking is going to be brought into the market. The no-bran rice is obtained by removing bran including an aleurone layer which remains in grooves or concaves on grain surfaces of polished rice after subjected to polishing by a polishing machine. As a method of manufacturing the no-bran rice, there are known a method in which the polished rice as material is subjected to polishing in water for a minute time and then dehydrated to be dried, a method in which the polished rice is polished by a grinding brush to remove the remaining bran, and a “granular material mixing/stirring” method in which granular material as adhesive agent such as amyloid and grinded grain is mixed and stirred with the polished rice so that the granular material captures the remaining bran.
FIG. 8
shows a polished rice processing apparatus
100
having a polished rice processing section
200
according to the “granular material mixing/stirring” method, as proposed in U.S. Patent Application No. 09/812,778. The polished rice processing section
200
includes a wet processing device
400
for softening the bran remaining on the surfaces of the material polished rice by stirring the material polished rice while adding moisture thereto, a thermal-adhesion material processing device
500
for adding pre-heated granular material to the polished rice so that the granular material captures the softened remaining bran, and a separating/drying device
600
for separating the processed polished rice from the granular material to obtain no-bran rice. The granular material separated by the separating/drying device
600
is collected and reprocessed by a granular material reprocessing section
300
for recycling and fed back to the thermal-adhesion material processing device
500
.
The granular material having predetermined granularity smaller than granularity of the material polished rice is used in the polished rice processing apparatus of the granular material mixing/stirring type so as to enable the separation of the processed polished rice from the granular material on the basis of the granularity by the separating/drying section
600
and also to effectively capture the bran remaining on the material polished rice. If the granular material separated by the separating/drying device
600
is directly fed back to the thermal-adhesion material processing device
500
, size of the granular material gradually increases by the bran captured on the surface of the granular material, to make the separation of the processed polished rice and the granular material by the separating/drying section
600
incomplete to rise a problem of immixture of the granular material in the processed polished rice.
Therefore, so as to recycle the granular material, it has been required to provide the granular material recycling section
300
as follows. The granular material recycling section
300
comprises a sifting device
700
for shifting the granular material separated by the separating/drying device
600
into a plurality of granularities, an abrading device
800
for abrading the bran from the surfaces of the granular material by passing a pair of rollers rotating in opposite directions, a drying device
900
for heating and drying the granular material with the bran removed from the surfaces of the granular material by the abrading device
800
and the sifting device
700
, and a conveying device
910
for feeding back the processed granular material to the thermal-adhesion material processing device
500
. The granular material after processed by the granular material recycling section
300
having regulated granularity is securely separated from the processed polished rice by the separating/drying device
600
of the polished rice processing section
200
.
However, since the granular material recycling section
300
comprises the sifting device
700
, the abrading device
800
, the drying device
900
and the conveying device
910
to be separately installed, the size of the polished rice processing apparatus
100
has to be large.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to reduce a size of the granular material regeneration section to thereby make a whole size of the polished rice processing apparatus small.
The polished cereal processing apparatus of the present invention comprises: a polished cereal processing section for removing bran remaining on surfaces of polished cereal by mixing granular material with the polished cereal so that the remaining bran is captured by the granular material, and separating the polished cereal with bran removed and the granular material with bran captured; and a granular material reprocessing section for reprocessing the granular material with bran captured and feeding back the reprocessed granular material to the polished cereal processing section for recycling the granular material. The granular material reprocessing section includes a screen tube for separating the granular material within a predetermined granularity range and a removing roller arranged to rotate in the screen tube for removing the bran captured on surfaces of the granular material fed into the screen tube.
With the above arrangement, the bran captured on surfaces of the granular material is effectively removed by the rotation of the removing roller and the granular material with bran removed to have granularity within a predetermined range is separated by the screen tube and fed back to the polished cereal processing section for recycling the granular material. Since it is unnecessary to provide the abrading device and the sifting device in the prior art in the granular material reprocessing section, the granular material reprocessing section is made small.
The cereal may be rice, wheat, barley corn, etc. As the granular material, edible granular material obtained by processing starch, such as cassava, to be pre-gelatinized and dried to form into small balls having predetermined uniform granularity such as pearl tapioca, and also grinded cereal such as grinded rice can be preferably used.
The polished cereal processing section may comprise: a wet processing device for stirring the polished cereal while adding moisture thereto so as to soften the bran remaining on surfaces of the polished cereal; a thermal-adhesion material processing device for mixing and stirring the polished cereal processed by said wet processing device with preheated granular material so as to remove the softened bran on the surfaces of the polished cereal to be captured by the granular material; and a separating/drying device for drying the surfaces of the polished cereal processed by said thermal-adhesion material processing device and separating the polished cereal from the granular material. In the case of adopting the polished cereal processing section of above arrangement, the granular material reprocessed by the granular material reprocessing section is fed back to the thermal-adhesion material processing device.
By adopting the above arrangement of the polished cereal processing section, the softened bran remaining on the surfaces of the polished cereal is gelatinized immediately after touching with the preheated granular material (thermal-adhesion material) mixed and stirred with the polished cereal in the thermal-adhesion material processing device and is adhered to be captured by the granular material and removed from the surface of the polished rice with the aid of transfer of the moisture of the bran to the granular material. Then, the polished cereal with the bran removed and the granular material with bran removed are dried and separated by the separating/drying device.
The granular material reprocessing section may comprise: a granular material regulating device for regulati
Fujikawa Hidefumi
Kawano Yukihiro
Munesada Takeshi
Uda Syuji
Satake Corporation
Simone Timothy F.
Staas & Hasley LLP
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