Macaroni

The ingredients are similar to cut noodles, but the preparation method is different, and the chewing feeling is also different. Macaroni is mainly made of wheat flour, and some are mixed with dried vegetable powders such as onions, celery, garlic, bay, and tomatoes, and some are added with eggs, soybean flour, milk, etc.

The raw material formula uses durum wheat (a type of wheat, pink, slightly yellow and sticky) as raw material, but ordinary high-gluten flour can also be used. When long macaroni is dry, it is easy to crack and break, so high-gluten flour with strong stickiness is needed; when short macaroni is dry, this problem does not exist, so ordinary flour can be used. The United States produces long macaroni that is mixed with egg whites to increase the stickiness of the flour. In this way, regular flour can also be used to make long macaroni.

Preparation method: The raw material wheat flour is fed into the mixing tank through an air conveyor tube. If necessary, add an appropriate amount of vitamins and other fortifiers, then add about 31% moisture into the mixing tank, and mix for 10 to 20 minutes (40°C) , make dough, and press it out through a high-pressure kneader. The interior of the kneader has a vacuum of 400 to 700 mm of mercury, so there are no air bubbles in the dough, which can increase the transparency of the product. In the sealed cast iron box, use a spiral to It is extruded at a pressure of 100 to 200 kg/cm2 and passes through a bottom plate with a plurality of predetermined holes to make various forms of macaroni. The short ones are immediately cut off with a rotating knife, and the long ones are connected to the rolling rod and cut off after reaching the required length.

The extruded wet product contains about 30% moisture, which needs to be gradually reduced to about 12% to become a dry product. During this period, in order to prevent microbial damage, the air humidity, temperature and air circulation in the dryer should be appropriately adjusted. Relative humidity and the equilibrium moisture of macaroni, see the table below:

Relative humidity and equilibrium moisture of macaroni (at 32°C)

Relative humidity %

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

Macaroni moisture %

22.0

18.2

13.9

12.1

10.5

8.8

7.0

4.9

Drying must go through the preliminary dryer twice. When it is just pressed out, it is soft and the surface is easily bruised, and fungi are easy to adhere to. In the first preparatory dryer, the surface is slightly dry and the moisture is also reduced considerably to prevent sticking to each other. In the second preparatory dryer, the moisture of the macaroni is averaged. There is hot and humid air inside the machine, and the drying work is temporarily stopped to restore moisture to the surface of the product, and even water droplets may appear, that is, "sweating"; Preparatory drying 1~ It takes 2 hours to complete. At this point, about 40% of all moisture has been removed.

Formal drying is to reduce the humidity and make it dry gradually. It takes about 30 hours for the long version and 15 hours for the short version. The overall temperature is 30~60℃, the humidity is 30~90%, and ventilation is provided. The long ones are placed on rotating rods, while the short ones are placed on the metal mesh conveyor belt, move parallel in the drying mechanism for drying, and are finally packaged.

For small-scale production, add 25-35% warm water at 30-60°C to the raw material powder, mix it with a low-speed mixer first, and then knead it thoroughly for 10-20 minutes. The kneaded dough is first pressed into a strip shape by a round roller, and then placed in an extruder; it is extruded out with a pressure of 150 to 350 kg/cm2 (hydraulic type). The outside of the machine is double-layered, with a 44 ~50℃ hot water to keep the dough at about 40℃. The extruded long ones are cut off when they reach 1 to 1.5 meters, and the short ones are cut with a rotating knife.

When drying, first place it in a room with a fan for 20 minutes to dry the surface, then place it in a room with little ventilation and stop drying for about 1 to 2 hours to allow the moisture to be even and the surface to sweat. Move it into the ventilation chamber. If necessary, "stop" and "surface drying" can be repeated until the required dryness is reached. In principle, it is advisable to dry indoors, with the humidity gradually reduced from 90% to 60%, which takes about 36 to 90 hours to complete. When drying, if the surface dries too quickly, cracks and breaks may easily occur; if it dries too slowly, mold may grow on the surface and sourness may occur internally.

The yield of macaroni is less than that of cut noodles, about 95 to 100%, because no salt is used and the degree of drying is better.