Cereal grain milling system with disc mill and improved bran removal machine
AssigneeConAgra, Inc.
InventorWarner Wellman
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A milling system for cereal grains such as wheat includes one or more bran removal machines which removes a substantial fraction of the bran of the incoming wheat to form a pearled wheat. The pearled wheat is then supplied as a feed stock to a disc mill in the first break position. The bran removal machines preferably include inner and outer abrasive elements, wherein the outer abrasive elements extend over a cumulative arc of at least about 250 degrees. Because a substantial portion of the bran is removed prior to the first break position, prior art problems associated with bran fragmentation in a disc mill are reduced.
Claims4
In bran removal machine of the type comprising:
- a vertically oriented rotor which supports a set of inner abrasive elements for rotation about a vertical axis;
- an enclosure assembly which surrounds the rotor and defines a grain receiving flow passage between the rotor and the enclosure assembly such that said inner abrasive elements are positioned adjacent the grain receiving flow passage;
- a set of passages in the rotor in communication with the grain receiving flow passage for introducing a gas into the grain receiving flow passage;
- and means for rotating the rotor with respect to the enclosure assembly;
- the improvement comprising:
- a set of outer abrasive elements included in the enclosure assembly and positioned adjacent the grain receiving flow passage to occupy a cumulative arc of at least about 250.degree. of the enclosure assembly;
- a set of screens included in the enclosure assembly and occupying a cumulative arc of no more than about 110.degree. of the enclosure assembly.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.