Design of Vacuum Frying System

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to design a vacuum frying system to prepare food products under vacuum condition. The motive to design a vacuum frying system is the health issue such as cancer due to consumption of deep fried food products. The objective is to design the components of vacuum frying system such as vacuum frying vessel, basket, condenser, vacuum pump and a heat source. In the present work, the design of all these components is discussed and elaborated in detail. The dimension of cylindrical shaped vacuum frying vessel is around 330 mm diameter and 360 mm height. A condenser is also designed for condensing the water vapor generated by frying the food under vacuum pressure. A 1/2 hp pump with around 5 cfm is installed to create vacuum inside the vessel by removing the non-condensed gases. The vacuum pressure of 10 kPa is maintained inside the vessel. Also, de-oiling system is designed to remove the surface oil from fried food product. Product quality attributes such as oil uptake and final moisture content in the sample of vacuum fried potato chips were tested at 10 kPa and oil temperature 100 °C and 110 °C simultaneously. Chips fried at 100 °C and 110 °C at vacuum pressure of 10 kPa found to have 21.42% and 22.90% oil content and 1.44% and 1.23% moisture content simultaneously. Analysis shows vacuum fried potato chips contain around 40% less oil compared to traditional fried potato chips.