Fryer for food process lines

A hot oil fryer for continuous frying duty in continuous food process lines, comprising:

• a cooking channel having a bottom wall between spaced sidewalls and spaced end walls for containing cooking oil to a given fill level, wherein the bottom wall deepens at one of said ends to define an intake end and is formed with a pair of debris collection wells which are partitioned by a transverse wall into an inboard debris collection well and an outboard debris collection well;
• a conveyor system having an upper food-carrying run and a lower sediment-motivating run, which sediment-motivating run is generally disposed to traverse along the cooking channel bottom wall for motivating sediment in the direction of the intake end of the cooking channel;
• said conveyor system including an entrant ramp section that is operative in the intake end's inboard debris collection well at least alternatively between a high-ramp configuration and a low-ramp configuration;
• wherein the conveyor system, excluding the entrant ramp section if in the high-ramp configuration, is disposed in the cooking channel such that both runs can be sunk below the given fill level of the cooking oil;
• and
• wherein the lower sediment-motivating run of the entrant ramp section motivates debris into the outboard well if in the high-ramp configuration or else into the inboard well if in the low-ramp position.

A hot oil fryer for continuous frying duty in continuous food process lines, comprising:

• a cooking channel having a bottom wall between spaced sidewalls and spaced end walls for containing cooking oil to a given fill level, wherein the bottom wall deepens at one of said ends to define a plunge pool for the intake of dropped-in food product;
• and
• a conveyor system having an upper food-carrying run and a lower return run, wherein the conveyor system includes an entrant ramp section such that the food-carrying run of the entrant ramp section climbs out of the plunge pool and then levels off;
• wherein the sidewalls of the cooking channel where flanking the plunge pool are formed low as about even with the given fill level of the cooking oil and are there provided with gutters that afford the spillover and removal of debris.