Episode 7
Cereal
If you aren't the type to rise at the crack of dawn and wolf down a hearty breakfast, chances are you eat a bowl of cereal or a granola bar on the fly. One of the best ways to beat the early-morning blahs, the goodness of cereal now comes in as many forms as our fast-paced lifestyles demand.
Our breakfast cereals were born out of the religious beliefs of the seventh-day adventists. The seventh-day adventists are vegetarians who, in 1860, founded a sanatorium where patients were fed only cereals: wheat flakes invented by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. His brother, William Keith, saw a promising future and built the first flakes factory to market the product. His success would later be imitated by the famous Charles William post of post cereals.
The making of frosted corn flakes starts in this cooker. The corn kernels are cooked here for 2 hours and 20 minutes. Then the corn kernels are ground up. They're ground up by this endless worm screw. It also determines the number of pounds of kernels needed to make up a cereal recipe. The ground corn is next dried in a dryer unit, an important step before they're cooked. To give them their nice, flat shape, the corn kernels are crushed in the flake roller. Two rollers turn opposite to each other, and the kernels fall into the constricted space between them. The flakes fall onto this conveyor, and the next step will be cooking. The flakes arrive at the cooking oven. They're shaken to make sure they will be uniformly browned. The flakes exit the oven well-browned. They then fall into this chute and head in the direction of the next step. This vibrating conveyor sorts the flakes and retains only the right-sized ones. This drum mixes the flakes and sprays them with a sweet solution boiling at 445 degrees. The sweet solution is dried, and a rake uniformly spreads out the frosted flakes on the canvas. Now they add in vitamins. The cereals are placed into this rotating drum. The vitamins are sprayed onto the flakes by a series of jets.
The cereals are now finished, and they head toward the packaging site. This packager fills the bags with cereal. It handles between 40 and 45 bags a minute before they head off for final packaging.
This plant doesn't only make cereals. It also makes soft cereal bars. This kneader mixes the ingredients: oat flakes, rice, and syrup. The preparation is mixed twice a minute. When well-mixed, the preparation is poured into a large container. They will now proceed with the molding of the bars. The contents of the bin are emptied onto a conveyor. And the mixture is spread out. Here, they add chocolate chips to the mixture. The mix is compressed to the desired bar thickness by this roller. The bar separator then divides the mix into 35 equal strips. And then a guillotine cuts the bars to their proper length. The bars continue circulating. This equipment is used to line up the bars and make the packaging process easier. Side by side, the bars are turned here so that they run one behind the other. This roller applies a delicious caramel fondant to the bars. This caramel fondant then cools and sets. They're now at the final stage of production: coating with chocolate. About 400 pounds of chocolate are needed for the bar recipe.
Now finished, the bars are ready for packaging. This machine individually bags the bars. Finally, they proceed with the packaging. These tasty bars will be enjoyed by children, as well as adults.
Episode 12
Chocolate
Working in a chocolate factory - talk about a childhood fantasy. Well, How It's Made is about to take a bite out of one of the all-time great dream jobs. Just beware of the occupational hazards: stomachache, weight gain, and cavities.
These delicious chocolate confections are made from melted chocolate flowing into molds. The master molds are first made of wood or plaster of Paris. They are then reproduced as copies in an epoxy material. To allow them to become flexible and give them the desired shape, the sheets of epoxy are first heated to 350 degrees. The epoxy sheet is then placed onto the original molds. The sheet is heated, then lifted off. Suction from a vacuum system makes it adhere perfectly to the shapes of the molds. Here we see the epoxy adhering to the master molds. Still hot and malleable, the plastic has to be cooled. A jet of compressed air effectively lowers its temperature. The mold undergoes a visual inspection to make certain of its quality.
And now we move on to the chocolate. This melting unit, whose shell is fed by boiling water, is like a double boiler and melts 1 1/2 tons of chocolate in 12 hours at about 100 degrees. The ready-to-be-filled plastic molds are placed onto a conveyor. Filling is done automatically. Liquid chocolate runs directly into the molds. This particular machine produces 400 hearts a minute. The hearts are filled with a concoction of chocolate, cream, and coffee that has been brewed for several minutes. It takes 20 minutes for the chocolate to set as the molds move along on this 9-level conveyor. Well-hardened, the hearts arrive at the unmolding point. The molds are turned over, and a rod lightly taps them on the bottom to allow the chocolates to fall out without being broken. The chocolates fall out onto a sheet. As soon as they've been emptied, the molds return to the starting point on the line to be newly filled. During their transport on the line, the chocolates complete their cooling and hardening. Now they're going to be prepared for packaging. Packaging depends on customers' preferences. The chocolates can be sold in bulk or placed in boxes. Here, 185 hearts are put into each box. Like the pure chocolate, white chocolate comes in as slabs before melting. Milk chocolate is often delivered in the form of one-inch pastilles. Some chocolates are hollow. They have to be molded in two halves.
These chocolate bears need special decorations applied by hand before the pouring of liquid chocolate. This decoration is made of white chocolate with an added colorant. In just one hour, they will make 1,200 bears. They're made by joining two hollow chocolate halves. The assembly is done using a refrigerated rotating machine. This machine turns the molds a full 360 degrees on two axes and vibrates the chocolates to prevent the formation of air bubbles. The chocolates rotate for five minutes before being sent to the cooling conveyor, where they will remain for another 20-minute period. And now they're ready. At this point, the bears are unmolded, and they head off for packaging.
Each year, this company processes 550 tons of pure chocolate. Many thousands of products are made here using 400 different molds in a variety of sizes.
