June Newsletter
VOLUME 27 NO. 6
Gem Memo readers, who are not involved with french fry potato processing may not want to read much farther. By the time you read this, Gem Equipment personnel will be on their way to the International Potato Processing & Storage Convention in Warsaw, Poland. Since this Memo is going to double as an introduction to Gem Equipment for attendees of this conference, it will be devoted to this company’s french fry potato product line. Gem’s Engineering Manager will be presenting technical information on rock traps to this Conference. Gem is manufacturing and selling Flodin debris and rock removal systems designed by John Flodin. Dealing with products, such as potatoes, which sink, the Flodin rock trap not only removes rocks, it also removes vines, chunks of wood and other floating debris. Rock traps, for product that sinks, have an upper conveyor to remove the floating debris. By utilizing slow moving water, material separation is enhanced. Rocks are conveyed out of the rock trap by the lower conveyor. Gem Equipment has one rock trap in operation and has orders for and is now manufacturing 4 rock traps. While he was operating his own company, John Flodin manufactured 86 rock traps.
In addition to Flodin rock traps, the equipment in Gem Equipment’s french fry potato product line includes blanching systems, frying systems, battering systems and conveyors. A complete blanching system consists of the blancher, circulation pumps, strainers, heat exchangers or steam injectors, circulation piping, support structure and catwalks. A complete frying system is best described by following the oil flow. Oil flowing in the main circulation piping goes from the fryer to primary filtration (usually a chip chain) to the circulation pump to the centrifugal filter to the heat exchanger and then back to the fryer. A mixture of oil and fines, usually carbon particles, is purged out of the centrifugal filter to a purge tank, which feeds either a vibrating screen or paper filter. Some systems use both a vibrating screen and a paper filter. These units separate the fines from the oil, which is pumped back to the main oil system. If the fryer has an outside belt return, oil that drips off the belt is also pumped back to the main oil system. In addition, auxiliary oil systems include low point drains and a pump down pump to empty all the oil out of the frying system.
One of this company’s specialties is large equipment. Over half of the 8 foot wide and wider french fry fryers, operating worldwide, were manufactured by Gem Equipment. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is used to assure that fryer oil flow is uniform across the width of the fryer. CFD allows the designer to watch the oil flow through the fryer kettle on his computer monitor. The batter systems that feed the 8 foot wide fryers have recently been upgraded. An 8 foot wide rod belt using machined chains, manufactured by this company, has replaced the two 4 foot wide belts used in older systems. This improvement was made possible by replacing the hold down belt in the batter applicator with a hold down drum. Conveyors, also sometimes very large, include several types of belt conveyors, screw conveyors, a few specialized vibrating conveyors and hydro-pump systems. In addition to manufacturing, Gem designs, installs, repairs and upgrades food processing equipment. Gem Equipment is a full service company.