US 4,829,890 AGranted

Counterflow washer and cooler apparatus

AssigneeKusel Equipment Company

InventorMeredith C. Thomson

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Abstract

A counterflow washer and cooler for processing cottage cheese curd and whey material comprising a horizontal housing, and a material and fluid blender rotatable mounted in the housing. The blender includes a rotatable shaft having at least one material lifting and conveying assembly rigidly mounted thereon having a material supporting surface and a guiding and conveying wall for moving material longitudinally through the housing in counterflow to the direction of flow of a washing and cooling fluid passing through the housing. The method disclosed is for washing and cooling cottage cheese curds and includes the steps of disposing a housing in a horizontal position, admitting a washing and cooling fluid into and upstream end of the housing and discharging it at a downstream end to establish a reservoir of flowing fluid, placing the material into the reservoir adjacent the dowstream end, lifting the material in the reservoir transversely to the normal direction of fluid flow, lowering the material in the reservoir at an acute angle relative to the normal direction of fluid flow to move the material in an upstream direction, and repeating the lifting and lowering steps until the material is discharged at the upstream end of the housing.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A counterflow washer and cooler for processing a degradable curd and whey material comprising:

a housing for containing said curd and whey material having
a horizontal longitudinally extending bottom wall, an interior surface, an upstream end and a downstream end,
material input and output openings in said housing adjacent said downstream and upstream ends respectively,
a fluid inlet in said housing adjacent said upstream end, and
a fluid outlet in said housing adjacent said downstream end for establishing a direction of fluid flow through said housing during operation from said upstream end to said downstream end;
a material and flow blender including
a shaft means rotatally mounted in said housing and having an axis of rotation extending parallel to said longitudinal extent of said housing, and a direction of rotation,
at least one material lifting and conveying assembly mounted on said shaft means, each said assembly including,
at least one paddle having a material supporting surface extending parallel to said interior surface and having, relative to said direction of rotation, a leading edge and a trailing edge,
a material directing means on said leading edge in cooperation with said interior surface for directing said material in said housing onto said supporting surface in said housing as said blender is being rotated during operation, and
at least one material handling section including a material guiding and conveying wall having a surface extending inward from said material supporting surface in angular relation to said axis of rotation for moving said material longitudinally in said housing from said downstream end to said upstream end counter to said direction of fluid flow when said blender is rotated during operation;
and
a drive means for rotating said material and fluid blender shaft.

10 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.