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There are many pieces of flour milling equipment that have to work in harmony to prepare and process grains for consumption. From separators and aspirators to grinders of all kinds, these machines are responsible for turning inedible husks into material suitable for baking. Because this process has been around for centuries, it has been improved upon many times over. Now, processing plants can create white or whole wheat products with the minimum amount of effort at the maximum rate of production.
Before grains can be ground down into edible food products, they need to be cleaned and graded for their size. This is done with a series of separators and aspirators, each of which is capable of removing fine materials from the grain. The most popular forms of separation include gravity separators, scalperators and magnetic separators. Gravity separators resemble a closed trough and consist of a series of rotating screened cylinders. As material is fed into the separator, they filter through the screen wrapped around the cylinder, while larger inedible pieces tumble out the bottom. Scalperators use a rotating wire mesh to filter out straw and other roughage and allow the grains to pass through the mesh unhindered. Magnetic separators complement other forms of separation and can be installed anywhere in a product stream. They are designed to pull out tramp iron like nails, screws, barbed wire and fine iron particles that can contaminate food. Aspirators use pressurized air currents to remove light inedible material like straw from heavier material like grains.
After separation, grains are sent through other pieces of flour milling equipment for grinding. There are a number of ways to grind grains in the agriculture industry, though the most popular are hammer and roller mills. Hammer grinders are large machines that consist of a spinning rotor that is attached to several hammers. While in operation, these hammers swing around the rotor and smash open any grains they come in contact with. A roller grinder is extremely simple and consists of a pair of spinning wheels. These wheels are set just millimeters apart and crush any grains that tumble through the wheels. Most facilities will install several series of roller grinders in a row to crush the material into smaller and smaller pieces. Another form of grinder is the Unifine pulverizer, which uses a powerful impact arm to pulverize a grain into a whole wheat food product.
Once ground down into white or whole wheat products, the material is sifted through to create varying grades of product. Some products are fortified with vitamins that are lost during the processing, a common problem when producing certain products. Flour milling equipment is also used to package the material using a combination of check weights and feed shafts. A bulk of grains can create several products, including bran, short grains, germ and various flours.
These machines are just a handful of the devices found in agricultural processing facilities around the world. Their reliability and efficiency is what keeps grocery store shelves stocked with delicious foods.
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