JPS6143013B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a method for producing expanded rice crackers, and particularly to a method for producing expanded rice crackers using grains processed into powder (such as wheat flour) as raw materials. It is.

(Prior Art) Conventionally, methods for producing expanded rice crackers using unprocessed grains (for example, rice) as raw materials are widely known, so in order to facilitate understanding of the present invention, we will first explain this prior art. A method for manufacturing such expanded rice crackers will be explained.

Fig. 1 shows an example of a rice cracker baking mold used in the conventional expanded rice cracker manufacturing method.
As shown in the figure, the rice cracker mold 1 has a lower mold 4 having a recess 3 (diameter 100 mm, depth 10 mm) with a handle 2, and a handle 5, which fits into the recess 3 with a gap of 0.02 mm or less. and an upper die 6 having a convex portion 5a that fits together.

In use, after heating the rice cracker baking mold 1 to a temperature close to the temperature at which rice crackers are actually baked, a predetermined amount of raw material 7 such as rice grains is fed into the recess 3, and the upper mold 6 is fitted into the lower mold 4. let After that, the senbei baking mold 1 is placed in a pressure device (see Fig. 4) equipped with a heating device from top to bottom, depending on the amount of raw material 7.
Heat by pressing for about 4 seconds. As a result, the moisture contained in the raw material 7 is vaporized, but since the gap between the concave part 3 and the convex part 5a is less than 0.02 mm and the raw material 7 is in a sealed state, the steam escapes. As a result, the raw material 7 is placed under high pressure. After reaching this state, by operating the pressurizing device, the pressure from the top and bottom of the rice cracker mold 1 is released (rapidly), and the raw material 7 is rapidly expanded and filled into the mold. They manufactured expanded rice crackers with a fixed shape that fit.

However, the rice cracker manufacturing method described above is
This method is limited to those that use unprocessed grains as raw materials, and cannot be applied to, for example, those that use powdered processed grains (for example, wheat flour) as raw materials.

Of course, there is also a method of baking rice crackers by mixing a leavening agent (for example, baking soda) into powdered raw materials, but rice crackers produced using this manufacturing method have the disadvantage that they have a unique taste, and furthermore, they are not natural foods. In recent years, when ``swelling agents'' have been respected, it has been undesirable to add an expanding agent to the raw materials. Therefore, it is widely desired to provide a method for producing expanded rice crackers for powdery processed grains as well, in which the raw material is expanded using the moisture contained in the raw material, similar to the above-mentioned conventional example for unprocessed grains. It was rare.

(Purpose of the Invention) The present invention was made in view of the above circumstances, and provides a method for producing expanded rice crackers using powdery processed grains as raw materials and expanding the raw materials using moisture contained in the raw materials. The purpose is to

(Structure of the Invention) The method for producing expanded rice crackers according to the present invention includes a raw material wet treatment step in which a small amount of water is added to a powdered grain product as a raw material, and a raw material is fitted with a small gap. A raw material feeding process in which the rice cracker mold is fed into a rice cracker mold made up of concave and convex parts, and a raw material pressing process in which the rice cracker mold is heated while being pressed to vaporize the moisture contained in the raw material. The process includes a heating process and a raw material expansion molding process in which the pressed state of the rice cracker mold is gradually released and the raw material is expanded to a predetermined size while allowing steam to escape from the gap.

In addition, the method for manufacturing expanded rice crackers of the present invention shown above is different from the method for manufacturing expanded rice crackers using unprocessed grains as raw materials according to the conventional example shown above. The reason is that a large amount of water is absorbed, the gap between the concave and convex parts of the rice cracker mold is somewhat large, the pressing time is somewhat long, and the steam is released from the gap during the raw material expansion molding process. However, they differ greatly in that they release the pressed state.

(Example) In order to further facilitate understanding of the present invention, a method for manufacturing expanded rice crackers according to an example of the present invention will be described.

First, in the raw material moistening process, a small amount of water is added to short wheat flour, which is a type of powdered processed grain product, and the mixture is stirred to moisten the entire wheat flour. In this case, if there is too little water, the finished rice crackers will not expand and will be powdery, and if there is too much water, the flour will expand too much and will scatter, making it impossible to shape it. It is preferable to keep the temperature at about 10 to 25°C.

If the raw material is wheat flour, the finished rice crackers can be eaten without any special seasoning, but if necessary, it is also possible to season the crackers by adding salt or sweeteners to the water added to the flour. .

In the next step, the raw material supply step, a predetermined amount of flour 15 moistened through the above steps is placed in a concave portion 8 and a convex portion 9 into which the flour 15 is fitted with a slight gap, as shown in FIG. Consisting rice cracker mold 1
This rice cracker baking mold 10 is somewhat different from the rice cracker baking mold 1 according to the conventional example described above, and the differences will be explained in detail below.

In the rice cracker baking mold 1 described above, the convex portion 5a
The gap between the fitting part and the recess 3 is very small (0.02
mm), but the fitting part 11a was made like this.
If the gap between the fitting parts 11a and 11a is too large, the flour 15 will not expand as much and the resulting rice crackers will not be thick.
As shown in the figure, since the upper edge 14 of the finished rice cracker 13 is missing, the diameter of the convex part 9 is made smaller than the diameter of the concave part 8 by about 0.03 to 0.05 mm, and the fitting part 1
Leave a small gap at 1.

In the above embodiment, the diameter of the recess 8 is 100 mm.
mm, but even if the diameter of the recess 8 changes somewhat, the dimension of the gap does not change significantly. Also, since the rice cracker baking mold 10 is usually made of iron, a temperature difference between the upper mold 6' and the lower mold 4' may be inconvenient, so the temperature should be raised in advance to a temperature close to the temperature at which the rice crackers will actually be baked. It is necessary.

Thereafter, the convex portion 9 of the upper mold 6' is fitted into the recess 8 by the lower mold 4', and the process proceeds to the next step, which is the raw material pressing and heating step. This raw material pressing and heating step is carried out using a pressurizing device equipped with a heating device consisting of a gas stove 18 and a heater 19, the outline of which is shown in FIG.

As shown in the figure, while the rice cracker mold 10 supplied with flour 15 is placed on a fixed plate 16 fixed by a supporting member (not shown), the main shaft 20 that transmits force is connected. The upper die 6' is pressed with the pressure plate 17 from above and below for about 6 to 8 seconds, although this varies depending on the amount of flour 15. In this step, the fixed plate 16 is heated by a gas stove 18 that is part of the heating device provided at the bottom, and the pressure plate 17 is heated by the heater 19 which is part of the heating device provided above. As a result, the rice cracker baking mold 10 is indirectly heated by these, the moisture contained in the flour 15 is vaporized, and the flour 15 is placed under high pressure.

Although the mechanism for pressing the pressure plate 17 described above is not shown, for example, a rack is carved in the main shaft 20 to which the pressure plate 17 is connected, and a handle is connected to a pinion that meshes with the rack. There are two methods: one is to push the pressure manually, and the other is to automatically push it using a cylinder mechanism or a cam mechanism, as is well known. Further, in this embodiment, the upper mold 6' is heated with the heater 19 and the lower mold 4' is heated with the gas stove 16, but both the upper mold 6' and the mold 4' can be heated with a heater or a gas stove. is also possible.

Next, the next step, the raw material expansion molding step, will be explained.

With the water contained in the flour 15 vaporized as described above, the pressure plate 17 is gradually raised upward to release the pressed state. By doing this, the generated steam gradually escapes from the gap between the fitting part 11 of the concave part 8 and the convex part 9, and the flour 15
expands. Thereafter, when the pressure plate 17 stops rising at a certain position, an expanded rice cracker that fits into the mold and has a certain thickness is completed.

This process differs from conventional methods of manufacturing expanded rice crackers using unprocessed grains as raw materials in that the pressure is gradually released to allow steam to escape from the gaps while expanding the raw material to a predetermined size.

Thereafter, the rice cracker baking mold 10 is carried out from the pressurizing device using the attachment 2' and the handle 5', and the finished expanded rice cracker is taken out.

In addition, in the above example, a method for producing expanded rice crackers using wheat flour as the raw material was described, but it is also possible to use powdered processed products of other grains (for example, corn, glutinous rice) as the raw material. Further, in the above embodiment, the shape of the rice cracker was a disk shape, but the shape of the rice cracker baking mold may be changed to make it into another shape (for example, a triangle or a square).

In addition, in the above embodiments, the present invention was explained using specific numerical values to facilitate understanding of the present invention. The invention is not limited.

(Effects of the Invention) According to the production method of the present invention, it has become possible to produce expanded rice crackers using powdery processed grains as raw materials and expanding the raw materials using moisture contained in the raw materials. Furthermore, this made it possible to manufacture expanded rice crackers using powdered processed grains without adding any additives such as expanding agents, making it an excellent product suitable for the times in today's world where natural foods are prized. It became possible to produce rice crackers.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a side sectional view of a conventional rice cracker baking mold, Fig. 2 is a side sectional view of a rice cracker baking mold used in the present invention, Fig. 3 is a side view of the rice cracker, and Fig. 4 is a side sectional view of the rice cracker baking mold used in the present invention. FIG. 2 is a schematic side view of an embodiment of a heating device pressurizing device. (Explanation of symbols), 8...Concave portion, 9...Convex portion, 1
0... Rice cracker baking mold, 11... Fitting part, 15...
Raw material, 16... Fixed plate, 17... Pressure plate, 18...
...Gas stove, 19...Heater.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A raw material moistening process in which a small amount of moisture is added to a powdery processed product of grain as a raw material, and a concave part and a convex part in which the raw material is fitted with a small gap. a raw material supplying step to feed the raw material into the rice cracker mold, which is composed of a rice cracker mold, a raw material pressing and heating step in which the rice cracker mold is heated while being pressed to vaporize the moisture contained in the raw material; 1. A method for producing expanded rice crackers, comprising the step of expanding the raw material to a predetermined size while gradually releasing the pressed state of the mold and allowing steam to escape from the gap. 2. The method for producing expanded rice crackers according to claim 1, which uses wheat flour as a raw material. 3. The method for producing expanded rice crackers according to claim 1, which employs a raw material wet treatment step in which the powdered grain product as the raw material contains 10 to 25% moisture. 4 The gap between the concave and convex parts of the rice cracker mold is 0.03~
The method for manufacturing rice crackers according to claim 1, wherein the grain size is 0.05 mm.