As consumer demand for healthy snacks continues to grow, the variety of value added nut snack options will grow due to creation of unique flavours/recipes, coatings and blends. Just as the Namkeen (traditional savoury snack) industry in South Asia has a multitude of methods and recipes to achieve unique flavours for each brand, nuts also provide an opportunity to offer a unique product that evolves with the changing needs and tastes of snack consumers.
For seasoned, coated, honey-roasted, and blended nut products, Heat and Control builds a complete range of equipment for nut preparation and handling, frying, cooling, glazing, application of seasonings and coatings, conveying, weighing, packaging and inspection.
Oil Roasting (Frying):
Oil roasting is a process by which nuts are submerged or covered in hot oil and fried. Roasting accomplishes many tasks including flavour enhancement, shelf stability (1 to 1.5% finished moisture) and also destroys microbes such as Salmonella. In almonds for example, 2 minutes at 260°F (127° C) is required to destroy microbes.
Basic frying principles can apply to most nut varieties: peanuts, almonds, cashews, pecans, walnuts, brazil nuts and sunflower seeds. Certain nut types, such as Macadamias, need to be handled with care. They are high cost and are more fragile. They also have a delicate flavour and it is necessary to fry them in very high quality oil.
Frying time and temperature is critical as the period between adequately cooked and burnt, is quite short. This varies depending on the nut variety, hence can only be established by testing and experience. Product feed to roaster is critical in order to achieve a consistent production rate and uniform product depth. It is also important to remove any debris before nuts enter the roaster.
Oil type or blend is also important for flavour development and is often a brand’s secret recipe. Typical oils include canola, safflower, sunflower, peanut and various hydrogenated blends. If oil solidifies at room temperature, all piping and tanks (especially “low lying”) must be heat traced (steam or electrical).
Various processes can take place prior to oil roasting that impart a specific mouth-feel, taste and flavour experience. Examples include brine soaking, coating and drying. If nuts are dry roasted prior to coating, the frying will be required to cook the coating only.
Dry Roasting:
A dry roast involves processing by means of hot air and there seems to be a tendency to use this method to reduce oil content. Entry level processors use forced air or semi industrial type convection ovens with nuts in a single layer and stirred regularly to avoid surface burning. Temperatures vary between 110 – 180 degrees C for 15 – 20 minutes, whereas larger volumes are done in custom designed drying ovens.
Seasoning + Coating:
This is where the uniqueness of a nut snack comes into play and has the potential to position a product as a premium snack. Seasoning nuts with salt, water or a mix of spices can be done on its own or additional to a batter coating. Exotic flavour recipes are used as a means of achieving premium price point or appealing to specific taste profiles in markets around the globe.
The application of glazing oil, water, salt, spice based seasonings, sugar, dough, chocolate, yoghurt and batters gives personality to the product. Flavour and especially colour can be added to the base formulation with frying or drying temperatures enhancing the flavour profile. Colour is also added to the base flavour mix to help with sight appeal.
Coating and seasoning application can be done either in the kitchen, in the packaging room or on a belt along the line. In-kitchen seasoning can occur directly after the dry roaster OR after the cooling process and before transferring into the packaging room.
On-machine seasoning (OMS) occurs in the packaging room, directly before the product goes into the weigher and bag maker.
Dry Seasoning:
Dry season application of nuts can be complex as oil tack (stick) is required for adhesion of the dry seasoning. In many cases this requires a water or oil application before the dry application. A lot depends on the roaster type (oil or dry). For example if the nut is dry roasted then a two stage, oil plus dry or salt application, is required to achieve adhesion.
For a coating such as Tamari or brine, a water application plus dry is applied after a dry roaster, with the cooler system turned off. If an oil roaster is used then dry seasoning or salting will occur after the fryer. Consultation with Heat and Control seasoning systems experts is recommended to achieve the best adhesion and coverage of dry seasoning application.
Batter Coating:
An example of batter coating is seen in the Indian snack category, Namkeen. Often peanuts are coated with a batter made from Besan Flour (chick pea flour) and spices before going into the fryer. For this market the key is to maintain the traditional taste and texture of a handmade product in a continuous system. A specially designed vibratory feeder singulates the product and feeds it into a curtain of batter.
This ensures that the product is presented to the batter curtain in a single file hence reducing the risk of getting doubles or married product. The batter curtain has a counter flow which ensures that the product is fully encapsulated before being placed into the fryer for cooking. These features ensure a premium coated product is produced with minimal wastage.
Honey Coating:
Honey coatings apply a viscous honey solution that is sprayed into the infeed end of the tumble drum. This is followed by sugar/salt to dry the slurry at the discharge end of the drum.
Brine and Starch Coating:
Normally a water-based coating and is done directly after the dry roaster and before the cooler. The heat of the nut evaporates the water in the coating leaving a nicely coated nut. Dry seasoning can be added when using a starch and water combination.
Dough Coating:
Typically quite thick and utilise cracker and dough based ingredients to achieve a thick enrobing type coating on the nut. In some cases, raw skin on peanuts is used. The flavour the skin imparts provides a unique taste and also helps the coating better adhere to the nut as opposed to a “naked” nut. Such examples of these are:
Blending:
Blending of nuts, fruits, candy, and other products provides another opportunity to create innovative products such as Bhujia or trail mix. Accurate blending systems are able to mix multiple products into proportionally even blends, that don’t stratify or separate before they reach the packaging station. The key is to maintain the blend so that the consumer will get the variety and proportions they expect.
