Markus HINRICHS Senior Process Engineer Bühler AG

As your long term partner in the animal feed industry, Bühler has advanced and further developed its well established rolling and flaking process.

As the trend in the animal feed industry has returned to its specialized products of rolled and flaked grains, peas and beans, Bühler, with its years of experience with this process is your ideal partner.

This process covers everything, even as demand has moved from cold-rolled grain to high-end flakes with a high degree of starch pre-gelatinization, a reduction in bacteria and the inactivation of unwanted inhibitors, and special attention has been paid to the flavor of the end product.

The main focus is on the animal's health which is protected and the products are easier to digest as the parameters for end product have been set to achieve a high quality product.

This therefore results in an increased performance of the animal and other benefits such as a higher yield of milk and increased growth due to the animal burning less energy when digesting flaked product.

The toasting effect, which improves the flavor of the end product, is achieved by the proper preparation of the raw material.

With that said it is important to ensure that the raw material is well cleaned and does not contain unwanted foreign objects that could reduce the quality of the product and harm the animal.

By using the right temperature (90–100°C) for the individual products to be flaked, the flavor is improved which serves to encourage the animal to consume this product more often during the day.

Bühler is able to supply solutions in accordance with the need of any customer who need to produce a high quality end product with throughput in the range from 2.0–12.0 t/h per system.

Due to improvements in technology and the equipment used, the process has been simplified and optimized to suit the raw materials to be processed. It is now possible to reduce the tempering time for even the finest quality flakes, corn for example, can be reduced from 24 hours to 18 hours without any detrimental effects to the quality of the end product.

With the latest technology and equipment, the end product, the flakes of which are on average less than 1.0 mm thick, can easily and consistently be produced.

The efficiency of the production plant has also been improved. The amount of steam needed for heating the product in the steamer and drying the flakes in a fluid bed dryer cooler, a conveyor dryer cooler or even in combination with a countercurrent cooler can be reduced to less than 30% based on the actual throughput. Previously, upwards of 40% was required to do this.

In recent years, customers across the globe have recognized these improvements and advantages which has resulted in a continuous increase in demand for flaking machines in regions such as Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa, and North and South America.

We will be delighted to support you with your requirements in regards of the rolling and flaking process for kinds of grain, beans and peas.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us, we are here for you and your customers at any time.