A slurry feeding mechanism and slurry injection machine for food processing

Abstract

The present invention discloses a slurry feeding mechanism for food processing, comprising: a pair of mutually meshing feeding tooth rollers and a shell, the interior of the shell is a hollow mold cavity, and the feeding tooth rollers are rotatably arranged in the shell; the top surface of the shell is provided with a slurry inlet for the slurry to pass through, and the bottom surface is provided with a slurry outlet for the slurry to pass through; the outer edges of the two feeding tooth rollers are provided with feeding teeth, and the feeding teeth are tightly matched with the inner side wall of the shell. The feeding mechanism of the present invention makes the amount of solid particles in each portion of slurry consistent, realizes accurate quantitative feeding, improves the control accuracy of feeding, and achieves the effect of standardized feeding.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The invention relates to the field of food machinery, in particular to a slurry feeding mechanism and a grouting machine comprising the slurry feeding mechanism. Background Art

[0002] Food processing often requires the use of a grouting machine to inject grout into food. For example, when making a cake, it is necessary to squeeze cream or other slurry in a specific shape onto the cake base. When making cookies, it is necessary to extrude cookie slurry in a specific pattern and wait for the later baking to take shape.

[0003] The grouting machine stirs and discharges the slurry in portions through a feeding mechanism. The feeding mechanism includes a shell and a pair of feeding tooth rollers arranged in the shell. A mold cavity is formed in the shell. The top and bottom surfaces of the mold cavity are provided with channels for the slurry to pass through. The extrusion mold is fixed below the shell. The slurry is input into the mold cavity from the top of the shell. The two feeding tooth rollers rotate in the outer direction of the meshing, respectively, and the slurry input from the top of the shell is rotated and driven to the bottom of the shell. The slurry falls into the extrusion mold. According to the specific shape of the die nozzle, a specific pattern can be extruded.

[0004] For traditional grouting machines, after the feeding gear rollers are assembled, there is usually a large gap between the feeding gear and the inner wall of the shell. Since the slurry itself can flow freely between the feeding gears, this traditional structure can meet the feeding work of pure liquid slurry. However, in the process of food production, in order to enrich the layered taste of certain types of food, solid particles such as fruit or nut grains need to be added to the slurry to produce products such as nut cookies and fruit cream. For this type of slurry containing solid particles, the unloading mechanism of the traditional grouting machine is difficult to meet the production requirements: due to the large gap between the material teeth of the unloading gear roller and the inner wall of the shell, during the rotation of the material teeth, the solid particles located in the gap between every two material teeth can easily move to the outside of the gap through the gap, resulting in inconsistent amounts of solid particles in the gap between every two material teeth, which can easily cause the particle ratio of each portion of slurry to be high or low when it is discharged; in layman's terms, the amount of fruit particles in the cream slurry squeezed out each time is sometimes more and sometimes less, the control accuracy is low, and it is difficult to control the standardization of the slurry discharge, resulting in difficulty in ensuring the subsequent food yield. Too much or too little fruit pulp will seriously affect the taste of the food and the consumer's eating experience. Summary of the invention

[0005] In order to overcome the deficiencies of the prior art, the purpose of the present invention is to provide a slurry feeding mechanism and a grouting machine including such a slurry feeding mechanism, which can feed slurry containing solid particles and solve the problem that the amount of particles in the slurry cannot be accurately controlled during feeding.

[0006] The present invention is achieved through the following technical solutions:

[0007] A slurry feeding mechanism for food processing comprises: a pair of mutually meshing feeding tooth rollers and a shell, the interior of the shell is a hollow mold cavity, and the feeding tooth rollers are rotatably arranged in the shell; the top surface of the shell is provided with a slurry inlet for the slurry to pass through, and the bottom surface is provided with a slurry outlet for the slurry to pass through; the outer edges of the two feeding tooth rollers are provided with feeding teeth, and the feeding teeth are tightly matched with the inner side wall of the shell.

[0008] Furthermore, the number of the material teeth of each of the lower material tooth rollers is greater than 4.

[0009] Furthermore, the material teeth are straight teeth.

[0010] Furthermore, the material teeth are in the shape of curved teeth, and a concave portion with a relative angle is formed on one side thereof.

[0011] Furthermore, the material tooth is C-shaped, and the side of the material tooth is recessed toward the meshing side.

[0012] Furthermore, the material teeth are V-shaped, and the side portions of the material teeth are recessed toward the meshing side.

[0013] Furthermore, the material teeth of the feed tooth roller are food-grade PE material teeth.

[0014] Furthermore, the mold cavity portion of the shell is aviation aluminum with an outer surface hard anodized.

[0015] Furthermore, a connecting plate is fixedly provided at the bottom of the shell, an opening for the slurry to pass through is provided on the connecting plate, and a groove structure suitable for plugging in the extrusion die is provided on the connecting plate.

[0016] A grouting machine comprises any one of the slurry feeding mechanisms for food processing described above.

[0017] Compared with the prior art, the beneficial effects that the present invention can achieve are: when feeding, the slurry containing solid particles enters the mold cavity of the shell from the slurry inlet at the top of the shell, and the two feeding tooth rollers rotate toward the outside of the meshing side respectively, driving the slurry to the slurry outlet at the bottom of the shell, so that the slurry falls into the extrusion mold below the feeding mechanism to achieve extrusion molding. During the rotation of the feeding tooth roller, the tooth gap between every two feeding teeth can accommodate a portion of slurry and drive it to rotate. Since the feeding teeth and the inner wall of the shell are tightly matched and the density of the solid particles is greater than the density of the slurry, the solid particles tend to sink. Therefore, a sealed cavity is formed between every two feeding teeth and the inner wall of the shell, so that the solid particles cannot move to the outside of the tooth gap until they reach the bottom of the shell and fall into the extrusion die. Therefore, the feeding mechanism of the present invention makes the amount of solid particles in each portion of slurry consistent, realizes precise quantitative feeding, improves the control accuracy of feeding, and achieves the effect of standardized feeding, so that after the slurry is added to the food, the taste of each portion of food remains consistent, and there will be no large difference in taste due to too many or too few particles, effectively ensuring the food yield and the consumer's eating experience. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0018] Figure 1 Shown is a three-dimensional schematic diagram of the material unloading mechanism;

[0019] Figure 2 Another three-dimensional schematic diagram of the material discharging mechanism is shown;

[0020] Figure 3 The figure shows a three-dimensional schematic diagram of the cooperation between the material discharge mechanism and the extrusion die;

[0021] Figure 4 Shown is a front view of the cooperation between the feeding mechanism and the extrusion die;

[0022] Figure 5 Shown is a three-dimensional schematic diagram of a straight-toothed material tooth;

[0023] Figure 6 The figure shows a three-dimensional schematic diagram of a C-type material tooth;

[0024] Figure 7 The figure shows a top view of the C-type material tooth;

[0025] Figure 8 The figure shows the matching diagram of the C-shaped material teeth and the inner wall of the shell;

[0026] Fig. 9 The figure shows a three-dimensional schematic diagram of a V-shaped material tooth;

[0027] Fig.10 The figure shows a top view of the V-shaped material tooth;

[0028] Fig.11The figure shows the cooperation diagram of the V-shaped material teeth and the inner wall of the shell;

[0029] Fig.12 Shown is an overall schematic diagram of the grouting machine.

[0030] In the figure: 10, feed tooth roller; 11, feed tooth; 20, shell; 21, slurry inlet; 22, slurry outlet; 30, connecting plate; 40, extrusion die; 200, feed hopper; 300, stirring device. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0031] The present invention is further described below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and specific implementation methods. It should be noted that, under the premise of no conflict, the various embodiments or technical features described below can be arbitrarily combined to form a new embodiment.

[0032] In the description of the present invention, it should be understood that the terms "center", "length", "width", "thickness", "up", "down", "front", "back", "left", "right", "vertical", "horizontal", "top", "bottom", "inside", "outside" and the like indicate orientations or positional relationships based on the orientations or positional relationships shown in the accompanying drawings, and are only for the convenience of describing the present invention and simplifying the description, and do not indicate or imply that the referred device or element must have a specific orientation, be constructed and operated in a specific orientation, and therefore should not be understood as a limitation on the present invention.

[0033] In addition, the terms "first" and "second" are used for descriptive purposes only and should not be understood as indicating or implying relative importance or implicitly indicating the number of the indicated technical features. Therefore, the features defined as "first" and "second" may explicitly or implicitly include one or more of the features. In the description of the present invention, the meaning of "plurality" is two or more, unless otherwise clearly and specifically defined.

[0034] In the description of the present invention, it should be noted that, unless otherwise clearly specified and limited, the terms "installed", "connected", and "connected" should be understood in a broad sense, for example, it can be a fixed connection, a detachable connection, or an integral connection; it can be a mechanical connection or an electrical connection; it can be a direct connection or an indirect connection through an intermediate medium, it can be the internal connection of two elements or the interaction relationship between two elements. For ordinary technicians in this field, the specific meanings of the above terms in the present invention can be understood according to specific circumstances.

[0035] The present invention discloses a slurry feeding mechanism for food processing, which is used to add slurry when making food, is usually equipped in a food slurry injection machine, and can be used to extrude slurry containing solid particles, such as cake cream slurry and cookie slurry. Figure 1-Figure 4The slurry feeding mechanism includes a pair of mutually meshing feeding tooth rollers 10 and a housing 20; the interior of the housing 20 is a hollow cavity for containing slurry; the feeding tooth roller 10 is rotatably arranged in the housing 20, and is used to rotate and drive the slurry to feed. Among them, the top surface of the housing 20 is provided with a slurry inlet 21 for the slurry to pass through, and the slurry inlet 21 is connected to the feed hopper 200 and the stirring device 300 of the grouting machine; the bottom surface of the housing 20 is provided with a slurry outlet 22 for the slurry to pass through, and the slurry outlet 22 is connected to the slurry extrusion die 40 with a specific die mouth shape. Material teeth 11 are provided on the outer edges of the two material feeding tooth rollers 10, and the material teeth 11 of the two material feeding tooth rollers 10 are tightly meshed without gaps, and the material teeth 11 and the inner wall of the shell 20 are tightly matched. It should be noted that tight fit means that when the processing error factor is excluded, the top of the material tooth 11 and the inner wall of the shell 20 are in a state of just fitting, and there is no gap or the gap is extremely small (smaller than the diameter of the solid particles in the slurry), but the two do not interfere with each other, otherwise it will affect the rotation of the material feeding tooth roller 10 in the shell 20.

[0036] See also Fig.12 When feeding, the slurry containing solid particles enters the mold cavity of the shell 20 from the slurry inlet 21 at the top of the shell 20 through the feed hopper 200 and the stirring device 300 above the feeding mechanism 100. The external driving motor drives the two feeding tooth rollers 10 to rotate toward the outer side of the meshing side, respectively, and drives the slurry to the slurry outlet 22 at the bottom of the shell 20, so that the slurry falls into the extrusion die 40 below the feeding mechanism 100 to achieve extrusion molding. Figure 4 During the rotation of the feeding tooth roller 10, the tooth gap between every two feeding teeth 11 can accommodate a portion of slurry and drive it to rotate. Since the feeding teeth 11 and the inner wall of the shell 20 are tightly matched, and the density of the solid particles is greater than the density of the slurry, the solid particles tend to sink. Therefore, a sealed cavity is formed between every two feeding teeth 11 and the inner wall of the shell 20, so that the solid particles cannot move to the outside of the tooth gap until they reach the bottom of the shell 20 and fall into the extrusion die 40. Therefore, the feeding mechanism of the present invention keeps the amount of solid particles in each portion of slurry consistent, realizes precise quantitative feeding, improves the control accuracy of feeding, and achieves the effect of standardized feeding, so that after the slurry is added to the food, the taste of each portion of food remains consistent, and there will be no large difference in taste due to too many or too few particles, which effectively guarantees the food yield and the consumer's eating experience.

[0037] In the past, the feeding tooth roller 10 of the grouting machine was usually equipped with only 3 to 4 feeding teeth 11, which made it difficult to achieve accurate feeding. In order to adapt to the food with smaller grouting requirements and achieve more accurate feeding, preferably, the number of feeding teeth 11 of the feeding tooth roller 10 in the present invention is greater than 4, and more preferably 6 teeth or 10 teeth.

[0038] There are three possible embodiments for the shape of the tooth 11 .

[0039] Example 1: See Figure 5 The material teeth 11 are straight teeth, and the two lower material tooth rollers 10 are meshed with each other through straight teeth. Straight teeth are the most common form, which has the advantages of simple processing and low manufacturing cost.

[0040] Example 2: See Figure 6-Figure 8 The shape of the material tooth 11 is C-shaped and presents a smooth arc shape. The arc angle between the C-shaped teeth is used to accommodate the solid particles that sink in the slurry. The side of the C-shaped tooth is recessed toward the meshing side, and the two lower material tooth rollers 10 are tightly meshed with each other through the C-shaped teeth.

[0041] Example 3: See Figure 9-11 The shape of the material teeth 11 is V-shaped. The angle formed by the V-shaped teeth is used to accommodate solid particles that sink in the slurry. The side of the V-shaped teeth is recessed toward the meshing side, and the two lower material tooth rollers 10 are tightly meshed with each other through the V-shaped teeth.

[0042] The material teeth 11 can also be made into other curved tooth shapes besides C-shaped or V-shaped.

[0043] Since the slurry contains solid particles, the density of the solid particles is greater than the density of the slurry, so the solid particles tend to sink. Since the material teeth 11 are made into C-shaped or V-shaped curved teeth, the concave part with relative angles is easier to accommodate more solid particles. During the rotation of the material teeth 11, most of the solid particles will sink and hide in the relative angles, and are not easy to scatter, while the slurry can easily pass over the top surface of the material teeth 11. Since only a small amount of solid particles will move between the material teeth 11 and the inner wall of the mold cavity shell 20, the material teeth 11 are not easy to destroy the solid particles in the slurry. Through production practice, the curved teeth greatly reduce the destructiveness to the granular slurry, are not easy to cause waste of raw materials, ensure the taste of the food after adding slurry, and ensure the high precision of the gram weight of the product.

[0044] In order to ensure the hygiene of the slurry and the food safety level during the grouting process, preferably, the material teeth 11 of the lower material tooth roller 10 are made of food-grade PE (polyethylene).

[0045] Also, in order to ensure the sanitation of the slurry and the food safety level during the grouting process, preferably, the mold cavity portion of the shell 20 is aviation aluminum with a hard anodized outer surface.

[0046] Preferably, see Figure 3-Figure 4A connecting plate 30 is fixedly provided at the bottom of the housing 20. The connecting plate 30 is provided with an opening for the slurry to pass through. The connecting plate 30 is provided with a groove structure suitable for plugging in the extrusion die 40. In a preferred embodiment, the groove structure can be a dovetail groove structure. The extrusion die 40 is adapted to the groove structure, and the extrusion die 40 is plugged in below the feeding device mechanism. When the product type needs to be changed, the type of the extrusion die 40 can be quickly changed by plugging. For example, when switching from producing cakes to producing cookies, the cake baking pan nozzle mold can be replaced with a cookie flower-shaped twisting nozzle mold; for another example, when the cookie production remains unchanged but the cookie flower pattern needs to be changed, it can be replaced with a twisting nozzle mold with another specific die mouth shape.

[0047] See also Fig.12 The present invention further discloses a grouting machine, comprising the above-mentioned slurry feeding mechanism 100; all grouting machines adopting the slurry feeding mechanism are within the protection scope of the present invention.

[0048] The above-mentioned embodiments are only preferred embodiments of the present invention and cannot be used to limit the scope of protection of the present invention. Any non-substantial changes and substitutions made by technicians in this field on the basis of the present invention shall fall within the scope of protection required by the present invention.

Claims

1. A slurry feeding mechanism for food processing, characterized in that: include: A pair of mutually meshing feed tooth rollers and a shell, the interior of the shell is a hollow mold cavity, and the feed tooth rollers are rotatably arranged in the shell; the top surface of the shell is provided with a slurry inlet for the slurry to pass through, and the bottom surface is provided with a slurry outlet for the slurry to pass through; the outer edges of the two feed tooth rollers are provided with material teeth, and the material teeth are tightly matched with the inner wall of the shell.

2. The slurry feeding mechanism for food processing according to claim 1, characterized in that: The number of the material teeth of each of the feed tooth rollers is greater than 4.

3. The slurry feeding mechanism for food processing according to claim 1, characterized in that: The material teeth are straight teeth.

4. The slurry feeding mechanism for food processing according to claim 1, characterized in that: The material teeth are in the shape of curved teeth, and a concave portion with a relative angle is formed on one side of the material teeth.

5. The slurry feeding mechanism for food processing according to claim 4, characterized in that: The material teeth are C-shaped, and the side portions of the material teeth are recessed toward the meshing side.

6. The slurry feeding mechanism for food processing according to claim 4, characterized in that: The material teeth are V-shaped, and the side portions of the material teeth are recessed toward the meshing side.

7. The slurry feeding mechanism for food processing according to claim 1, characterized in that: The material teeth of the unloading tooth roller are food-grade PE material teeth.

8. The slurry feeding mechanism for food processing according to claim 1, characterized in that: The mold cavity portion of the shell is aviation aluminum with hard anodized outer surface.

9. The slurry feeding mechanism for food processing according to claim 1, characterized in that: A connecting plate is also fixedly arranged at the bottom of the shell, an opening for the slurry to pass through is formed on the connecting plate, and a groove structure suitable for plugging in the extrusion die is provided on the connecting plate.

10. A grouting machine, characterized in that: The invention comprises a slurry feeding mechanism for food processing as described in any one of claims 1 to 9.

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