Ground Coffee: Automatic Monitoring of Grain Spectrum
At the very latest step, segregation must be prevented after grinding to ultimately get the same amount of coffee in all individual portions. Even if you are not processing a blend, you have to conserve the desired grain spectrum after grinding. Every single-serve system has its characteristic and predefined grain spectrum. Thus, the grinding process has to produce exactly the ratio of fine, medium and coarse that has been defined and optimized for the specific preparation system. If not, you would recurrently produce divergent results. Based on extensive tests and data collection, Probat's research and development department has developed the system of inline grain measurement to continually control the grain spectrum and thus decisively contribute to quality assurance.
It identifies variations in the grinding process induced by abrasion and wear of the grinding rolls and warns the operator and adjusts the rolls to automatically react to the variations. In contrast to the standard sampling at regular intervals, the system monitors grain size continually and directly. The ground product passes through a particle-measuring sensor mounted at the outlet of the roll mill.
A product sample is sucked from the ground coffee stream, diluted/aerated and channeled past an optical measuring device. Using a laser beam, this measures the particles' speed and flying time. The system compares the measured data with a maximum and minimum threshold value. If the sample moves beyond these values, the system alarms the operator who can then manually intervene. Computer-controlled grinders automatically adjust the grinding gap based on the data collected. After completing the data measurement, the system returns the product sample to production.
A consistent grain spectrum is the decisive criteria for the ensuing conveyance of the ground coffee. As only a small amount of ground coffee can be put into each single portion it is particularly important to have a consistent distribution of grain sizes. Therefore, preventing segregation into individual groups is crucial - the different grain sizes could group together into large, medium and small. A suction-impulse conveyor with the help of a conveying gas prevents segregation through a suction-impulse conveyance. The conveying gas has residual oxygen content of less than 1% and ensures an aroma-friendly product conveyance to the storage area.
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