Ampco Foods Inc.

American Potato Company

John L Veeneman

Mounir A Shatila

Marion E Thomas

William H Von Der Lieth

Harry R Deveraux

James F Harmon

William H VonDer Lieth

William H VonDerLieth

John H Lach

A horizontal chamber and a piston movable in the chamber to discharge potato dough through a discharge opening at one end of the chamber. A dough dividing structure adapted for mounting in the discharge opening. A diaphragm and means for mounting the diaphragm on the face of the piston such that when the piston is retracted in the chamber from a body of dough therein, an air passage is created to relieve the vacuum between the diaphragm and the dough, thereby avoiding distortion of the dough. For charging the chamber with a body of dough to form an impervious barrier therein there is an adapter in vertical alignment below the constituent introducing devices; the adapter supports the piston and the cylinder in vertical alignment below the constituent introducing devices so as to expedite charging of the machine to form an impervious dough barrier. After the constituents set into a dough the chamber, with the impervious barrier therein, and the piston are installed in the machine for normal operation. An improved nozzle for introducing the water constituent which nozzle virtually eliminates all kinetic energy or velocity necessarily developed when the water is delivered to the nozzle.

Water nozzle for dough forming apparatus

A mechanism for controllably driving a plunger in a dough forming apparatus of the type that has a chamber in which the plunger resides to move dough in incremental steps toward one end of the chamber. Spanning the one end of the chamber is a plurality of parallely spaced apart elongate members, the spacing between the elongate members corresponding to the thickness of a french fry shaped piece, e.g. 1/4 inch. The plunger is advanced by increments of a similar distance, the distance corresponding to the width of the french fry piece and when a plurality of dough bodies protrude through the spaces between the elongate members a single wire cutter is reciprocated across the exterior of the elongate members to sever the protruding bodies thus to form french fry shaped pieces. In order that the pieces possess a square or substantially square cross sectional shape, the mechanism of the invention assures accurate incremental advancement of the plunger as well as affording a quiescent period during which the wire cutter is reciprocated across a transverse plane exterior with the surface of the elongate members. An extremely simple and accurate drive mechanism for assuring constant incremental advancement. A mechanism which in addition to affording constant incremental advance of the plunger provides a quiescent period for transverse dough cutting and affords actuation of the dough cutter during such quiescent period in response to a single driving stroke applied to the mechanism.

Drive mechanism for dough shaping apparatus

A horizontal chamber and a piston movable in the chamber to discharge potato dough through a discharge opening at one end of the chamber. A dough dividing structure adapted for mounting in the discharge opening. A diaphragm and means for mounting the diaphragm on the face of the piston such that when the piston is retracted in the chamber from a body of dough therein, an air passage is created to relieve the vacuum between the diaphragm and the dough, thereby avoiding distortion of the dough. For charging the chamber with a body of dough to form an impervious barrier therein there is an adapter in vertical alignment below the constitutent introducing devices; the adapter supports the piston and the cylinder in vertical alignment below the constituent introducing devices so as to expedite charging of the machine to form an impervious dough barrier. After the constituents set into a dough the chamber, with the impervious barrier therein, and the piston are installed in the machine for normal operation. An improved nozzle for introducing the water constituent which nozzle virtually eliminates all kinetic energy or velocity necessarily developed when the water is delivered to the nozzle.

Dough forming apparatus

Method for forming dough barrier

A process for automatically preparing french fries comprising the steps of cooking french fry shaped pieces of potato dough in a hot oil contained in an imperforate container having a drum shaped basket having a perforate cylindric wall and opposed overlapping arcuate segments which rotate to provide a tumbling agitation of said pieces, to insure uniform contact with said oil, which is interrupted for a time sufficient to complete the cooking of said pieces which thereafter are drained of any excess oil prior to transferring the drained pieces to a holding area.

Process for deep fat frying comestibles in an automatic deep fat fryer

Growing community of inventors

Idaho Falls, ID, United States of America

John L Veeneman