GEA has launched its new CookStar 1000 spiral oven for manufacturers of roasted, crispy-coated and smoked products.
Each aspect of the CookStar 1000 has been refined by GEA engineers to deliver higher capacity, increased yield, improved product quality and consistency, more flexibility and greater efficiency than its predecessors. These enhancements allow manufacturers to dry, steam, cook, roast and smoke products in the same oven while increasing production, improving product quality, variety and reducing energy.
The new CookStar 1000 generates up to 25% more heating capacity than previous versions, due to improve heat exchange technology. This also translates into increased throughput – up to 25% more – along with improved colour and crispiness, and all within the same footprint. The additional power is tempered to ensure optimal airflow across the entire 1,000mm width of the belt, horizontally and vertically, which ensures more even cooking, resulting in fewer over-cooked products and higher yield. The improved airflow and additional capacity also increase overall efficiency and reduces energy consumption.
The spiral oven features three-zone cooking with improved booster impingement and airflow efficiency, combined with an oven balancing system, opening new opportunities for regulation. The active, intelligent exhaust concept moreover provides oven control with lower consumption of steam. The CookStar maintains the required dewpoint in each cooking chamber independent of external influences. Dewpoints can be set between 45-95-degree Celsius, at temperatures ranging from 50-250-degree Celsius, as required by the recipe.
The updated, more intuitive and larger control panel monitors all critical parameters improving the operator overview. Smart automation features improve the level of precision, improve the technical availability, and make the oven less dependent of the operator.
The CookStar 1000 is a spiral cooker that can dry, steam, cook, roast and smoke products in a single machine, while giving manufacturers control over each cooking zone, for improved product quality and consistency, ensuring faster and more accurate roasting so products remain juicy on the inside and breaded products remain crispy on the outside.
Already available for third generation GEA CookStar 600, but now also introduced on the CookStar 1000 is the possibility to in-line smoke products. This makes CookStar the in-line spiral oven which can introduce freshly generated, purified natural smoke into its airflow. This option opens opportunities to create a distinct and customised flavour and attractive colour while maintaining quality, consistency and meeting extended shelf life requirements. Smoking time is reduced from hours to minutes, making it easy for manufacturers to expand their portfolio to include fully-cooked, smoked products.
GEA has also introduced a new low-friction material for the guiding strips for the CookStar spiral ovens. The material, marketed under the name Endurlon, lasts up to four times longer than Teflon, due to harder wearing and better temperature characteristics. Endurlon extends the service life of the guiding rails by as much as four times, according to GEA, thus reducing maintenance costs, while promoting high belt speeds for products that require minimal cooking time.
The new CookStar 1000 complements GEA equipment for upstream operations such as defrosting, marinating, loading, brine preparation, injection, mixing, forming and coating; and downstream processes including freezing, packaging and oil recovery. A broad portfolio, combined with GEA’s extensive process knowledge allows manufacturers to configure entire lines from a single source, ensuring consistency across all production parameters.
