Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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The present invention relates to a dry ready to
eat high fiber cereal and a process of preparing the same.
Recently, there has developed increasing in-
terest among nutritionists and among consumers in~high
fiber food products, particularly in high fiber ready to
eat cereals. At the present time, wheat bran is the
principal ingredient which is relied upon to provide high
fiber content for example in ready to eat cereals. How-
ever, some commercially available wheat-bran ready to eat
cereal products become soggy and pasty almost immediately
upon wetting of the product in milk. Others are very
hard and go almost to the other extreme of not being
palatable, even in milk, because of prolonged hardness.
On the other hand vast quantities of maize corn
bran are avaiable for use in the high fiber human food
products such as, for example, ready to eat cereals. It
would be highly desirable to produce high fiber cereal
products utilizing maize corn bran as the source for the
high fiber content, in conventional cooker-extruder ex-
pansion processes and equipment, such as those disclosed
in U.S. Patent 3,054,677 to W. R. Graham, Jr. et al.
or U.S. Patent 3,462,277 to R. R. Reinhardt. Such
processes and equipment economically and at very high
speeds, produce a modern dry, ready to eat cereal pro-
duct, having an attractive palatable appearance, e.g.,
a bite size or larger sized product, having strong sales
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appeal to the average consumer. The products are light,
crisp and frangible, having pleasing color and taste.
In such processes a dry-appearing mixture of in-
gredients is passed quickly through a cooker-extruder in
which high pressure and temperature is generated. The
ingredients are quickly cooked, a dough is formed, and
the dough is expelled through a constricted opening, e.g.
through a plurality of dies, under high temperature and
pressure conditions. Temperature and pressure ahead of
the dies are maintained high enough to cause sudden
release of pressure when the dough is forced through the
dies, with sudden conversion of at least some of the mois-
ture to steam in the extruded dough mass to develop small
and large bubbles in the resulting product. This develop-
ment of bubbles throughout the extrudate is called "ex-
pansion." The extruded expanded dough passes through a
momentary, fleeting stage in which the dough is extremely
cohesive, sticky and flexible, and upon the sudden flash-
ing of some additional amounts of the water, the water
content drops, and the pieces are immediately transformed
into less sticky pieces. The pieces are then typically
charged into a high temperature, high velocity air stream,
in which the drying step is completed and the dry pieces
develop the highly desirable toasted appearance.
: However, the technology has not been available
for the production of an extruded expanded cereal product
using maize corn bran as an ingredient in such processes.
It is an object of the present invention to pro-
vide process technology for the production of extruded
expanded ready to eat cereal products utilizing maize corn
bran as an ingredient, which product has very favorable
sensory characteristics. It is a further object of the
present invention to provide a high fiber expanded ready
to eat cereal product utilizing maize corn bran as the
principal source of the additional fiber present.
The present invention provides a process for
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producing a dry ready to eat high fiber cereal product
comprising the steps: admixing with cereal dough ingred-
ients sufficient ground maize corn bran, as an ingredient,
to provide a fiber content of 3.5 to 10% by weight,
based on the weight of the product, said ground maize corn
bran having been ground to a fineness whereby 100 percent
ofsaidgroundmaize corn passes through a 40 mesh U.S.
sieve, cooking the ingredients in a cooker-extruder to form
an extrudate under temperature and pressure conditions
sufficiently high to result in expansion of the dough upon
its release from the cooker-extruder, cutting the expanded
dough extrudate into discrete pieces, and drying the
resulting pieces to a moisture level of 2-3 percent.
The present invention further provides a dry
ready to eat expanded cereal product produced in a cooker-
extrusion expansion process, said cereal including ground
maize corn bran in an amount sufficient to provide 3.5 -
10.0 percent inclusive fiber content, by weight based on
the weight of the product, said ground maize corn bran
having been added to said product as an ingredient which
wasground to a fineness whereby 100 percent of said ground
maize corn bran passes through a 40 mesh U.S. sieve.
In accordance with the present invention, an
extruded expanded ready to eat cereal product utilizing
maize corn bran as an ingredient to supply additional
fiber, is produced in an otherwise conventional cooker-
extrusion expansion p.rocess, but wherein the maize corn
bran ingredient has been ground to a granulation of at
least 100 percent through a 40 mesh U.S. sieve. In one
preferred aspect maize corn bran ingredients having a
granulation of 100 percent through a 60 mesh U.S. sieve and
70 percent through 100 mesh U.S. sieve are employed. None-
theless, another preferred embodimentutilizes a granu-
lation such that 100 percent passes through 40 mesh, and
45 percent stays on a 60 mesh U.S. sieve. Although I have
discovered that there is no limit with respect to the
amount of extremely fine particles, in fact for economic
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reasons I prefer to use ingredients in which substantial
portion thereof, e.g. 40 percent remains on a 60 mesh sieve.
I have found that the improved process, in ac-
cordance with the present invention, is suitable for use
with any type of cooked cereal dough ingredients, and in
any process which utilizes a cooker-extruder, and which
produces an expanded cereal product upon sudden release of
pressure from the extruder through a die. There are
many such processes widely known in the art, and for ex-
ample those set forth in the above cited patents, and a
wide range of densities are achieved in the resulting
products due to the expansion into steam of the rela-
tively low levels of water which are present in the dough
in the extruder cooker.
Utilization of maize corn bran straight from the
dry milling process in such processes was found to be
totally unworkable. Such ingredients cause erratic plug-
ging of the dies, surging of the dough through the extrud-
er and orifices, and most significantly, results in extreme
cereal piece disintegration during and after expansion.
Furthermore, coarse grinding of the maize corn bran, e.g.
so that a major portion of the ground bran just passes
through 2 or 4 mesh U.S. sieve, although improving the
orifice plugging problem, nonetheless results in unaccept-
able surging, as well as product disintegration during and
immediately after expansion. We have found that when the
maize corn bran is ground to fineness at or finer than the
; levels set forth above, the orifice extrusion problem is
totally eliminated, the surging problem is totally elim-
inated, and the product disintegration problem during
and after expansion is also eliminated. In addition, we
have discovered that the resulting product has scored
better than commercially available high fiber wheat-bran
derived cereals when compared in consumer tests.
In the following examples all parts are expressed
in parts by weight, and temperatures are expressed in
degrees Fahrenheit.
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EXAMPLE 1
The ingredients set forth below in Table 1 were
added to a ribbon blender in the relative amounts set
` ~ forth, and were mixed until the contents of the blender
appeared to be homogenous.
TABLE 1
Yellow Maize Corn Flour 49.9 %
Ground Maize Corn Bran 25.00%
; Oat Flour 15.00%
Sugar 8.0 %
Salt 1.0 %
Soda 0-75%
Vitamin Premix 0.15~
Ground Limestone 0.17%
Color (brown) 0.02%
",~ 100. 00%
*The ground maize corn bran is maize corn bran that
has been ground to a granulation of 100 percen$
through 40 mesh U.S. sieve with 45 percent on 60
~ mesh U.S. sieve.
h +giving a fiber content of approximately 3.5~ of
the whole mix.
The resulting mixture was found to contain ap-
proximately 8 percent moisture. The resulting admixture
is, in a separate blender, further admixed with additional
quantity of makeup water so that the resulting admixture
consists of approximately 20 percent total moisture. The
resulting 20 percent moisture mix is freeflowing although
` it does give evidence of cohesion upon in-hand compression.
The 20 percent moisture mix is charged to an
extruder cooker in which both the extruder and propulsion
screw are equipped internally for water cooling. Room
temperature water is circulated through both~the jacket
and the screw and approximately a 10F. increase in temp-
erature is encountered on the jacket although the screw
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coolant water exited at approximately 115 F. The
extruder cooker is operated in a conventional manner
to provide compression, propulsion, and extrusion of the
dough, under conditions such that even though cooling is
applied, the dough temperature upon extrusion is approxi-
mately 340~F. with the sudden release of pressure. For
example, the extrudate is passed through six orifices
closely arranged in a circle in the die base and the ex-
trudate from each respective orifice contacts and co-
heres to extrudate on either side to form a tube. The
tube is allowed to pass between conventional cutting rolls
to result in individual pillow shape pieces. Typical
conventional extrusion, and cutting equipment which is
suitable for use in accordance with the present invention
is shown in U.S. Patent 3,054,677 to W. R. Graham, Jr.
et al.
Upon the cutting of the product into pieces,
in this example into pillows, the product is dropped into
a high velocity high temperature air stream conveyor in
which the air is at 600F., for example, and conveyed to
a cyclone separator and air lock and discharged into a
third hopper. Thereafter the product is charged to a con-
ventional enrober apparatus with a syrup at the ratio of
70 percent by weight of cereal pillows and 30 percent by
weight syrup and admixed until a substantially uniform
product is achieved wherein the resulting enrobed pro-
duct is passed through a two phase oven to drop the mois-
ture content to approximately 2 - 3 percent.
The coating syrup was prepared by admixing 40.8
parts of sugar (granular sucrose), 5.6 parts of coconut
oil, 2.7 parts of salt, 0.1% vitamins, and 50.74 parts of
water.
The product produced in accordance with Example
l was tested for sensory quality against a number of com-
mercially available wheat-bran based high fiber cereals.
In this test, the product of Example 1 was compared in
the homes of a number of consumers against wheat-bran
base high fiber products which are commercially avail-
able, but which in this test were not identified to the
consumer as to brand name. The product produced in ac-
cordance with Example 1 was found to have a clear pref-
erence over any of the products, using wheat bran as the
ingredient to provide the high fiber levels. The pro-
ducts of the present invention were reported to be pre-
ferred with respect to flavor, texture, and bowl life.
EXAMPLE 2
A series of comparative tests are performed
in which the procedure of Example 1 is repeated, except
that in a first test of this example maize corn bran
straight from the corn dry milling process is used as the
maize corn bran ingredient. In a second test coarse
ground maize corn bran, i.e. 100 percent through 4 mesh
U.S. sieve is utilized. In the first test severe orifice
plugging is encountered, surging in the extrusion, is
encountered and extreme product piece disintegration is
observed. By product piece disintegration I mean that
the particle pieces tend to become disintegrated during
the expansion step, with the result that an extremely
high percentage of broken cereal pieces are produced.
In the second test of this example, the die
plugging problem is greatly relieved although not elimi-
nated,' severe surging continues to be observed, and again
extreme cereal piece disintegration is observed.
The conditions set forth in the examples are not
intended to be limiting, since the present invention is
useful with any conventional cooker-extrusion expansion
process for producing ready to eat cereal products.
Nonetheless, preferred ranges for the operation of the
cooker-extruder otherwise in accordance with Example 1
include the use of screw speeds, for example, from about
135 - 155 rpm, manifold pressures ti.e. at the dough just
upstream from the die orifices) of 2400 - 2600 psi,
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dough temperatures at the die of 330C- 350~F. and high
velocity air stream temperatures of 600 - 700~F. are
preferred in the air conveyor.
Although the example utilizes cooked cereal
dough ingredients selected from oats and maize corn as
the main starch source, any other cereals and cooked
cereal dough ingredients are useful in the process of
the present invention. For example, wheat-derived ingred-
ien~s such as wheat flour, can be used, and rice, sorgum,
soya, tapioca, waxy maise, and other cooked cereal dough
ingredients are also useful. Sugar ingredients, flavor-
ants and the like, are also added conventionally.
In accorandance with the present invention, a
very desirable and satisfactory expanded ready to eat
cereal product is produced utilizing the bran of maize
corn. Also, the product produced therefrom was found
to be of improved flavor and without wheat bran's
heavy taste and texture. The product is believed to be
a surprisingly desirable product inasmuch as the consumer
tests which were conducted indicated that most people
preferred the taste of maize corn bran over bran cereals
made from wheat bran.
Thus, it is apparent from the above examples
that, in accordance with the present invention, maize corn
bran can be used successfully in the cooker-extruder pro-
duction of expanded ready to eat cereal products providing
it is first ground to the critical fineness range
disclosed herein prior to incorporation of the maize corn
bran as an ingredient in the manufacture of the extruded
expanded cereal product. On the other hand, if maize
corn bran straight from the dry milling process, or more
crudely ground maize corn bran is employed a totally
unsatisfactory and unworkable process results.
In accordance with the present invention, suf-
ficient ground maize corn bran of the required fineness
is added to the ready to eat cereal product ingredients
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- to provide 3.5 - 10.0 percent fiber content derived from
` corn bran. In preferred embodiments products at the
range of 3.5 - 7.0 percent fiber are provided. Products
in these ranges are referred to in the trade as
"high fiber" products.
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