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Clextral pioneered the process for extruded breakfast flakes in the early 70’s, introducing a process that was faster, simpler and more economical than the traditional batch process
A typical breakfast extruded cereal flake processing line includes preconditioner, steam device, twin screw extruder, cutter, cooling drum, flaking mill, dryer toaster and optionally, coating unit and belt dryer-cooler.
Advantages of Clextral’s cereal flake extrusion process:
• Lower raw materials costs
• Greatly reduced processing time, from 7 hours with traditional batch process to 20 minutes by extrusion.
• Expert process control produces high quality product with quality/flavour profile of traditionally produced flakes
• Flexibility to process many cereal grains: corn, wheat, bran, oats and rice
Breakfast extruded flakes technology:
Dry ingredients, including grits, sugar, and salt, are mixed and conveyed to a preconditioner which hydrates and heats the mixture to commence gelatinization.
The partially cooked product is fed to the twin screw extruder. Inside the extruder, the twin rotating screws mix the extrudate, creating heat and shear to perform complete gelatinization. Malt syrup is injected directly to the extrudate through ports in the extruder barrel. Processing temperatures are precisely controlled by heating and/or cooling circuits in each section of the extruder barrel. This process forms a dense phase extrudate which will mimic traditional grits when processed through a flaking mill.
The fully cooked product is forced through a die which forms continuous strands. After a short cooling period, the strands are cut into nibs by a nib cutter. Strands may be cut into various sized nibs, therefore, the size of the flake is no longer dependent on the size of the grit.
After cooling, the pellets are flaked in a flaking mill and transferred to a toasting oven. A coating may be applied to add a sweet flavour or vitamin enrichment, followed by a final pass through a belt dryer-cooler.
Output from 100 to 1000 kg/h
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