Current Newsletter

VOLUME 31, NO. 1

Gem Equipment is a small company that performs large jobs.  How large?  A really large project can be one quarter of a full years business.  Many years, the three largest projects will be half the total business for that year.  Needless to say, gaps between large projects can result in lower than optimum activity level.  One portion of the business that helps to fill in these gaps is repair, redesign and rebuild of existing equipment in the field.  The largest segment of this business is the redesign and rebuild of french fry potato fryers.  These fryers have the most potential for upgrade.  This company has redesigned and rebuilt fryers, not only in North America, but also in Australia and Europe. 

Unless there is redesign, or the unit is in very bad condition, repair and/or rebuild is unlikely to make the fryer operate any better than it did when it was new.  Poor oil flow in the fryer kettle is a common cause of unsatisfactory cooking.  Gem Equipment uses CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) for both redesign and design of a new fryer to make sure that oil flow is satisfactory for the application.  Good oil flow requires uniform velocity across the width of the fryer with a minimum of turbulence.  Too much turbulence will move the product around on the belt causing an uneven cook time.  Smooth even flow is more critical for battered product and formed product than for conventional fries.  Because conventional fries tend to form a mat traveling through the fryer, they hold position on the belt and are much more forgiving of poor oil flow.        

A CFD analysis of oil flow through the kettle is the normal first step for addressing poor fryer cooking performance.  This will require exact dimensions of the fryer kettle, number and location of oil inlets and oil outlets and oil flow rates at each inlet and outlet.  The next step in the analysis is to set up a model of initial conditions within the CFD program on the computer.  This enables the engineer to observe existing oil flow through the fryer kettle on the computer monitor.  The next step is to make changes to the design to improve oil flow and enter these changes in the CFD model.  The affect of each change is observed and the process repeats desired operation is achieved.  Once the changes to be made have been determined, it is straight forward to complete the design and produce shop drawings.  Gem Equipment will quote a firm price on fryer redesign, which includes CFD, the design work and a firm price for the work to upgrade the fryer.

Any fryer, including ones manufactured by Gem Equipment prior to 2000 will be improved with a redesign and upgrade.  This company routinely performs upgrades on fryers manufactured by other manufacturers.  To our knowledge, no other manufacturer has redesigned and upgraded a Gem Equipment fryer.  Other companies have done maintenance work on Gem fryers.  One incident happened so long ago that it can be reported without causing embarrassment.  A good local contractor did work on the fryer track. Unfortunately, their work included welding which defeated the workability of the track expansion joints.  The result was a fryer track that distorted when it was heated up.