Peanut butter making process

Peanut butter is a type of food made from grounded peanuts. It has a modified taste with additional ingredients like sweeteners, salt, and emulsifiers. This product is consumed by many countries, with the United States being the leading exporter of peanut butter. This article explains some basic facts about making peanuts and their history.

This food is rich in nutrients and contains proteins, dietary minerals, and some high levels of vitamins.

The main types include crunchy peanut butter and smooth peanut butter. The crunchy type has some coarse particles. The soft peanut butter has its contents ground smoothly and uniformly with the possible addition of cooking oil to produce a fine texture. In some countries, such as the United States, it is a requirement for peanut butter to have a 90% content of peanuts.

Artisan peanut butter

However, this type is also available in the market with low demand. This type does not have preservatives and additives.

Processing

Planting season and harvesting

Panting is done in spring because of the weather. Peanuts’ harvesting period is between August and October when there is clear weather. The aim is to prevent the ground from sticking onto the peanuts when being picked. From the farm, the machined remove shells.

Shelling

This stage aims carefully to prevent damage to the peanuts. There is moisture control to avoid frangibility.

Roasting

Here, there are two methods: the batch method and the continuous method. The main aim is to remove the peanuts’ moisture and dry them.

Cooling

After roasting the peanuts, they are immediately taken from the heating oven and cooled in the cooling cylinder. This cylinder can cool the peanuts efficiently since it has some suction fans. There is cooling to a temperature of 30 degrees.

Blanching

After cooling, the peanuts pass through heat blanching and sometimes through water blanching. It aims at removing the seed coats that could have remained.

Heat blanching

Here hot air is used to heat the peanuts at 138 degrees. After heating, skins are taken out and separated from the peanuts into waste pits.

Water blanching

The kernels are arranged in the troughs, and then sharp stationery blades crack the skin kernel. It will help to place the seeds in hot water while removing the skins. The movement of the compressor removes the skins.

After this blanching process, the peanut product passes through screening. It aims at eliminating rotten peanuts and the ones.

Grinding

Grinding succeeds in blanching. Here, there is grinding of peanuts using two grinders, with the first crushing the peanuts into medium sizes while the second grinding the peanuts to achieve a fine texture. There is an addition of additives such as vegetable oil and salt, which helps in achieving a uniform mixture.

Packaging

There is the cooling of the peanut in heat exchangers. Once cooled, it is then pumped into containers to remove air to prevent oxidation from taking place. The containers are labelled and packaged before distributing them to retailers for sale.

Conclusion

Peanut butter making machine follows a series of steps before being ready for human consumption to eliminate possible contaminants that can cause harm to human beings health-wise.