AN IMPROVED CONTINUOUS PROCESS AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING A PITA CHIP

摘要

A continuous process and the accompanying equipment for making a chip product, such as pita chips. The process involves cutting sheeted dough into continuous longitudinal strips, and cooking them to form hollow tubes. In some embodiments, these tubes are split longitudinally. Also disclosed is a vacuum-assisted splitter. These bread tubes or strips are cured in an accelerated process. The bread tube is trimmed into chip-sized pieces. In one embodiment, the pita bread strips are cut into chip-sized pieces using a continuous, low-pressure water jet cutting system. The resulting chip-sized pieces are nearly uniform in size, shape, and texture.