Wide Fryers
VOL. 20 NO. 3
Gem Equipment has been involved with wide fryers for over ten years. Late in 1989, this company was selected to rebuild a ten-foot wide basket fryer. This rebuild included replacing the basket mechanism with a wire mesh belt, new kettle, oil inlets and outlets. The hood was the only major component reused. For several years, this rebuild was the most expensive fryer project ever completed by Gem. Requirements for wide fryers are more exacting than for narrow fryers. A fryer belt over seven-feet wide requires a center support. Needless to say, most center supports that work very well at lower temperatures are not compatible with 400 degree cooking oil. While the center support used in this fryer rebuild was successful, the one developed for Gem's second wide fryer was vastly improved.
Oil distribution across the width of the fryer is more critical in a wide fryer. Add the requirement for maintaining equal oil flow rate and belt speed for the first stage of a battered product fryer or a formed product fryer with outside return and you see the motivation for this company's effort with computerized fluid flow profiling. A Computerized study of each unit's specific oil flow is part of the design of every fryer manufactured or rebuilt by Gem Equipment. That is the way to make sure the completed fryer will have correct oil flow. Each fryer inlet utilizes two stages of perforated plates to ensure the oil is evenly distributed across the width of the fryer. The second perforated plate is bolted rather than welded to the kettle. This makes it easy and relatively economical to replace perforated plates, if the fryer oil flow is not satisfactory. The progress made in applying flow profiling to wide fryer design can best be illustrated by how often one or more perforated plates has to be replaced in the process of fine tuning fryer oil flow. (A bolted in perforated plate also helps assure even oil discharge at the fryer oil outlets.) In 1996 and 1997 when the french fry industry started standardizing on eight foot wide fryers for battered product, Gem replaced at least some perforated plates on almost half the fryers manufactured. More recently less than fifteen percent of the fryers manufactured have required perforated plate replacement.
Wide fryers are normally not compatible with belt returns inside the fryer kettle. An inside return interferes with support for the center of the belt. With an outside return, the center track can be supported from the bottom of the kettle. In most Gem fryers this track is flat bar welded to the kettle minimizing the amount of oil underneath the belt. With an inside return for a wide belt fryer, it would be necessary to support the center track from the sides of the kettle resulting in much greater fryer oil capacity. There are a couple of fryers, in operation, not manufactured by Gem that attempted to get around this problem, by utilizing two narrow belts, side by side in a wide fryer. While this configuration allows space between the belts for center track support, it includes its own set of problems. Regardless of width and configuration used to support the belt, there is no getting away from the fact that inside returns add to fryer oil volumes. Most of the fryers, over seven-foot wide, operating in french fry potato plants worldwide, are manufactured by Gem Equipment. If you need a wide fryer, contact Gem.