“The electronic data collection system installed into our Demaco pasta press will enhance the education of participants in the pasta courses and will assist our contract processors in achieving their goals,” says Brian Sorenson, Technical Director at NCI. “We can now capture information such as the temperature of flour or semolina that we are adding, and the water temperature as it is added to the mixer. We also have temperature sensors for dough temperature, mixer vacuum, die pressure and extruded product temperature,” he says.

NCI's annual pasta course attracts pasta processors from a variety of large multi-national companies and small family-owned operations. This year, participants are coming from eight U.S. states, Nigeria, and Morocco. Topics include durum varieties, wheat quality tests, semolina physical and rheological tests, functional pasta ingredients, quality assurance, pasta defects, and processing factors for traditional dried, refrigerated, and frozen pasta and noodles.

Course faculty are: Dr. David Hahn, New World Pasta Company, Harrisburg, Penn.; D.B. Chawan, Srim Enterprises, Liverpool, N.Y., Dr. Patricia Berglund and Brian Sorenson, NCI; Dr. Monisha Chakraborty, Dr. Elias Elias, and Dr. Frank Manthey, all NDSU.

The new electronic monitoring system gives an enhanced picture of processing. For years, NCI's technical staff watched the pasta extruder's gauges and jotted down the readings in a notebook in order to understand what was happening within the extruder. Now, thanks in part to an innovative project manager at a Fargo fabricating company, electronic sensors provide that same information and store it in a computerized database. This means that pasta makers can take a closer look at pasta as it is made and learn how ingredients and formulations affect the pasta extrusion process.

Brian Harris, project manager at Standard Industries, Fargo, ND, says, “We adapted a program made by General Electric called ‘Simplicity,' which is designed for plant control. NCI's extruder had many sensors that were reading data, but no central place where you could read it all. With this setup, the participants will be able to see on-screen every point of what is happening in the extruder.”

A ‘black box' is an important part of this operation. Sensors throughout the extruder record critical activities and feed information back into the black box. “Extruder rpms, dry flow rate, temperature, pressure, all feed into the black box that is attached to the computer. The computer reads the data and puts it onto the screen,” explains Harris.

The computer screen displays all the important processing conditions in real time. At the same time, the black box records how the extruder operates so that the processing parameters can be correlated to the quality of the product.

“Any time you are running an experimental pasta product, you need to make adjustments because it will run differently than standard durum semolina,” says Sorenson. “Even when you are comparing sources of semolina or different varieties of durum, you will have different processing requirements. By having all of this information, you can make certain adjustments while you are processing to optimize conditions.”