Fryer control strategy improvement: Towards acrylamide reduction in crisp manufacture

This paper describes research efforts to improve the operation of industrial scale crisp fryers to ensure that product quality targets are exceeded. The work described was un-dertaken within a project whose aim is to minimise the acrylamide formation arising during processing operations. The existing fryer temperature control scheme was found to be sub-optimal from an acrylamide perspective and involved considerable operator intervention, particularly at fryer start-up. A new temperature control system was de-signed and implemented to overcome the shortcomings of the existing strategy. Fryer temperature and crisp moisture were regulated effectively through gas flow and dwell time modifications. Interactions between loops were compensated for and start-up was automated to reduce the impact of operator-to-operator variation. The resulting scheme was found to deliver much-improved temperature control which will lead to a resultant decrease in acrylamide formation.(c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creative-commons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

This paper describes research efforts to improve the operation of industrial scale crisp fryers to ensure that product quality targets are exceeded. A new temperature control system was designed and implemented to overcome the shortcomings of the existing strategy, resulting in improved temperature control and a decrease in acrylamide formation.