Bakery Concepts International has announced that it has been granted new patents for its Rapidojet technology. The two patents relate to:

• The hydration apparatus, including an air augmentation feature that intersects the ingredients. The air augmentation inlet is positioned to cause turbulence in the ingredients prior to the ingredients passing a liquid discharge nozzle that hydrates them.
• A mixing chamber for mixing a variety of dry ingredients with liquid. The mixing chamber has an accumulation chamber that evenly distributes ingredients as they pass a liquid spray nozzle, resulting in uniform hydration. The liquid may be sprayed at a variety of pressures to achieve varying levels of granule hydration to permit the manufacture of dough, batter or other compositions. Even dry ingredients which are generally slow to absorb moisture may be rapidly and evenly hydrated without an excess of liquid or heat generation. Process parameters such as volume flow rate of the dry ingredients, can also be varied.

The fields of invention and background relate to:

• An apparatus for hydrating and mixing flour and flour-like dry granulated materials in a consistent and uniform manner, augmented with an air flow to more consistently produce a uniform mix; while mixing chambers that include ambient air are known, there is still a desire to have better distribution or separation of the ingredients presented for hydration.
• Mixing chambers for hydrating and mixing flour and flour-like dry granulated materials in a consistent and uniform manner; mixing chambers for dry ingredients, for use in continuous flow processes and often used in large-scale production, often fail to effectively mix a wide variety of dry ingredients at variable flow rates, resulting in inconsistent hydration.

The apparatus uses supplemental air augmentation to improve the distribution of the material presented to the mixing chamber for hydration, including flour, bran, whole wheat, a full range of hydrocolloids and whole grains.

The mixing chamber evenly distributes ingredients as they pass the liquid spray nozzle, resulting in uniform hydration. The liquid can be sprayed at a variety of pressures to achieve varying levels of granule hydration.