The North Carolina Food Innovation Lab (NCFIL) will be conducting a short course on food extrusion taught by instructors from NC State University and Bühler, Inc. This hands-on course will be held in the NCFIL facility in Kannapolis, NC on the North Carolina Research Campus January 30-February 2.

The mornings will be classroom instruction, and afternoons will be hands-on with NCFIL’s 30 mm - 36 L/D Bühler BCTM PiloTwin extruder.

This course will focus on the following:

• the principles of extrusion
• designing extrusion processes for human foods with an emphasis on texturized and high moisture meat alternatives
• principles of screw configuration
• operations conditions
• die configurations
• downstream processing

The course fee will include a flash drive containing all presented materials, lunches, snacks, and beverages. The fee also covers materials used for hands-on demonstrations. See full agenda below.

Register soon; course is limited to 15 participants. Registration will be closed on January 23, 2023.
$250 discount for early bird registration prior to January 9, 2023.

Register on Eventbrite.

Tentative Short Course Agenda
Monday – 8:30-4:30 pm
Morning:
Introduction to twin screw extrusion:
Design criteria for co-rotating twin screw extruders
Major parts of an extruder processing facility
Important criteria to select an extruder manufacturer
Afternoon:
Barrel and screw design
Screw elements
Die designs
Pre-conditioners
Feeders
Comparisons between manufacturers

Tuesday – 8:30-4:30 pm
Morning:
Hands on the extruder – learning the different components and parts
Afternoon:
Ingredients used in extrusion:
Key ingredients for different extruded products with a focus on cereals, snack foods, dry texturized proteins, high moisture meat alternatives
Hands On: setting up a screw configuration for protein crisps and extruding product

Wednesday – 8:30-4:30 pm
Morning:
Overview on product configurations and shapes – how to achieve what you want using dies, cutters, cooling dies, and post extrusion processing equipment
Overview on bed dryers
Afternoon:
Hands on: setting up a screw configuration for dry texturized alternative “meat” products and product extrusion

Thursday – 8:30-4:30 pm
Morning:
High level chemistry, physics, and engineering course on proteins and starches used in extrusion
Hands on: setting up the screw configuration and cooling die for high moisture meat alternative
Afternoon:
Hands on: extrusion of HMMA and shredding finished product