Retort rice meal producing system

Abstract

A retort rice meal producing system is provided capable of total production from raw rice up to a retort rice meal excellent in outer appearance by using a simple production process. The system includes a pressurized steamer mechanism performing a steam heating process on raw rice under pressurizing to form an gelatinized layer on a surface layer part of the raw rice grain and to make a center part thereof porous, a steamed-rice single granulation mechanism removing surface-layer moisture from the steamed rice processed for single granulation as being conveyed by a conveyer, a quantitative filling mechanism of measuring the steamed rice subjected to single granulation for each pack and filling a container with the steamed rice, a packing mechanism further filling the steamed-rice-filled container filled with the steamed rice with at least an amount of a liquid such as a rice-cooking liquid required for soaking and moisture absorption and air for allocating a head space, and sealing the container, a soaking/moisture-absorbing mechanism reversing a package of the sealed container a plurality of times and causing the rice-cooking liquid to be absorbed into the steamed rice, and a retort sterilizing apparatus performing a heat treatment on the steamed rice caused to absorb the rice-cooking liquid up to the center part.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.