Through a proprietary process, Newly Weds Foods, Chicago, is able to eliminate bacterial counts in raw spices. The BA-8 Orifice Gate from Salina Vortex, Salina, Kan., makes this food safety process possible. The valves have been in service since 1989. Maintenance has had the gates out of service only once during that time frame to replace the pressure plate seals.
“What we needed,” explains Don Angell, plant engineer for Newly Weds Foods, “was a device capable of dropping an entire volume of raw spices into our proprietary steam chamber. The other options [such as a rotary valve (RV) or a vibratory feeder mechanism] did not allow for this control of the volume. For instance, with an RV, plant engineers have to control volume by revolution of the pockets.”
Constructed of aluminum with stainless steel metal/material contact and nylon pressure plates, the Orifice Gate is flanged to the bottom of a 2,800-lb receiving hopper on a 30,000-sq.-ft. production floor.
One Orifice Gate valve is stacked directly on top of a second Orifice Gate valve. Located between the two valves is a spool piece that has a cylindrical pipe-like design. As the top valve opens, the spices fill this spool piece with raw spices.
“Another advantage of the Salina Vortex gate,” explains Angell, “is that the spool piece is fully adjustable so we can fill other volumes of spices as well.”
The spool piece also can process different spice densities. “We are consistently able to maintain throughput despite varying bulk densities,“ he says.
After the spool piece is filled with the appropriate volume of spices, the top valve closes. Once the top valve closes, the bottom valve opens and the appropriate volume of material spills into the proprietary steam chamber.
The ability of the top valve to fully close, as Angell explains, ensures the proper volume of product is measured and no product degradation results. “With the tight tolerances of a rotary valve, for example, our pepper berries could get crushed,” he says.
The Salina Vortex gate feeds straight through, ensuring 100 percent of whole volume spices drop out of the spool piece. “The plant attains the throughput rates it wants,” says Angell.
Powder & Solids update, supplement to Food Processing 2002
