Processes Affecting the Oil Content of Potato Chips

Online, March 21, 2014 (Newswire.com) - Potato production and consumption is rapidly increasing in the whole world. It is one of the vegetables from which numerous products can be prepared. Potato chips is one of the largely produced and preferred snack items by all ages of consumers. However, nowadays saturated and trans-fat are the main elements related to causing diseases, reducing or removing the oil content of potato chips can not be ignored by the producers.

The oil content is a very important factor to the chips producers. High oil content can not only add the cost of chips production, but also make the chips oily, highly susceptible to rancidity and thus less desirable to the consumer. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain a appropriate level of oil in every aspects.

Potato Preparing

In order to get superior fried potato chips, we must choose the potato that can satisfy the process requirements. Generally, the potatoes need to be neat in tuber, uniform in size and few in bud eye. What is more, the potato should have high content of starch and dry matter, high relative density, low content of reducing sugar and moisture. All these characteristics of potatoes are conductive to increase the yield and lower the oil content of potato chips.

Potato Cutting

The thickness of potato slices also influence the oil content of potato chips, which is inversely proportional to the oil content. Too thin slice may lead to excessive frying, increasing the oil content of potato chips. Generally, the thickness of slice is no less than 1 mm. Our potato cutting machine can satisfy the requirements.

Potato Chips Blanching

In the commercial production of potato chips, blanching potato slices previous to frying can not only keep the fresh color, eliminate the off-flavor, retain the original flavor and increase the softness of the cell to help moisture evaporation, but also reduce the oil uptake by causing gelatinization of the starch on the chips surface. By using the electric potato blanching machine, the enzyme activity in the potato can be stopped.

Potato Chips Frying

Frying can be defined as the process of drying and cooking food by contact with hot oil. The high temperature results in the evaporation of water, which moves away from the chips and through the surrounding oil. Frying oil is then absorbed by the chips, replacing the lost water. The outer surface of the slice is the first area to take up oil and it has more oil than average since the area has a greater exposed surface in contact with the oil. The oil temperature and the frying time have a direct relationship with the dry matter content of potato, slice thickness and blanching degree. Experiments have shown that it is better to fry the chips with high temperature and short frying time. However, the oil temperature shall not exceed 200℃, or the steatolysis will be accelerated, shortening the shelf life of oil.

Potato Chips De-oiling

During frying, the fried chips are at high temperature and pressure. Once the chips are removed from the fryer, the cooling period begins and the temperature of chips drops, resulting in a decrease in the pressure in the pores. Therefore, the surface oil is absorbed into the porous chips so that its internal oil content increases. Then a potato chips de-oiling machine can help us to remove the surface oil and de-oil the fresh fried chips, resulting in very low oil content in the final products.