Health conscious consumers are driving demand for tasty nutritional snacks and the high nutritional value of nuts is seeing them continue to gain popularity as a “better for you” snack product. They also offer processors tremendous versatility to create a differentiated, premium product through seasoning and coating. 

Nuts can be used in a variety of applications, and Heat and Control has many solutions for manufacturers to value-add their nut products, using different flavours, recipes, coatings and blends and cooking techniques.

Oil Roasting and Frying Nut Products

Nuts are roasted through a process of submerging or covering them in hot oil to fry the product. Basic frying techniques are used on most nut varieties such as peanuts, almonds, cashews, pecans, and walnuts. Roasting nuts can enhance flavour and increase shelf life. Products like macadamias require more specialist frying techniques as they’re a more expensive commodity and require high quality cooking oil to enrich the flavour.

There is a fine line between nuts being under-cooked or burning, so controlling temperature of the oil and feed of nuts into the roaster is critical to achieving a consistent production rate and product depth in the oil. Waste debris must be cleared before any product enters the roaster to prevent fines forming and the oil burning which diminishes quality. Innovations in roasting techniques have found that curtains of oil passing over products is a much more effective way to transfer heat than submersion.

The Heat and Control HeatWave® Fryer and Oil Roaster range of fryers have revolutionised the advances in oil roasting, using a breakthrough design which roasts nuts through curtains of clean filtered oil. Oil passes over the product and through the conveyor, immediately removing fines.

A consistent oil flow and wiping action of the conveyor belt cleans fines on the full width of the pan, while the total system oil volume circulates through a filter within seconds, producing the highest quality product with the cleanest operation of any nut oil roaster. HeatWave Fryers and Oil Roasters also provide manufacturers with huge savings through reduced oil usage and the HeatWave has the lowest oil volume of any continuous oil roaster.

Dry Roasting

The Rotary Drum Roaster (RDR) is the latest product offering from Spray Dynamics and gives operators complete control to dry or to roast in a continuous, gentle, and sanitary manner. The RDR provides high volume convective airflow combined with gentle rotary motion that ensures all product is uniformly treated with heated air. Operators have full control over the roasting or drying process variables, enhancing the finished products’ colour, flavour, and texture.

This design handles the raw product in a continuous, high-density manner through a unique flighted drum that ensures positive motion.  Featuring a unique drum design that facilitates continuous first-in-first-out product flow and independent fans and burners in multiple convection zones, this provides complete process control which can be tailored to various products.

Seasoning and Coating

The Spray Dynamics range offers a variety of coating systems that apply a consistent, uniform application of both liquid and dry seasonings. They offer accurately metered and sprayed liquids and precisely measured dry powders which provide reliable and even seasoning coverage. Product differentiate and creating premium products with coating         

Use these applications to appeal to specific taste profiles:

• Glazing
• Oil
• Water
• Salt
• Sugar
• Dough
• Chocolate
• Yoghurt
• Batters
• Spice based seasoning

Heat and Control’s nut snack line capability, enabling food manufacturers to take advantage of the cost saving benefits a single source supplier can offer with a complete solution for seasoned and coated nut snacks, including frying, dryer/roasting, seasoning, coating, conveying, weighing, packaging, case packing, inspection, and controls.