Process After washing and destoning, potatoes should be well peeled by lye or steam. If lye is used, an immersion time of 3 min at 92C, and a sodium hydroxide concentration of 15-18 percent should give adequate results but, again, times and concentrations will have to be varied according to the time of the season and the varieties. Stored potatoes are usually more difficult to peel than those freshly lifted Peeling losses will range from 20 to 30 percent Peeling is followed by washing under a powerful water spray in a brush washer or reel washer. The former method is preferred by some processors, as the brush action is particularly effective in scouring and cleaning growth cracks and other excrescences softened by the lye treatment. Alternatively, flash steam peeling may be used, and this is now usually preferred The peeled potatoes pass from the washer on to trimming and inspection belts. Inspection must be very thorough here, and particular watch must be kept for grit, or foreign matter, which may have escaped precleaning operation, as, if these enter the cutters, considerable damage will be done to the dicing knives, which are quite expensive to replace. With good quality raw material, well peeled, each person on the trimming belt should be able to handle 170-180kg per hour The trimmed potatoes are conveyed to the cutters. a standard size of dice for dehydration is 9.5mm cube but this can be varied by changing the first, or slicing, knife position to give a thinner initial cut(down to 2mm)or the spacing of the stripping and the dicing knives can be altered to change the other two dimensions It must be remembered, however, that reducing the thickness of the cut may create a dense bed'condition in the dryer, necessitating a lighter loading per square foot of drying area. A 9.5mm cube, therefore, is the ideal size for optimum throughput, as this particle size forms a satisfactory permeable bed in the dryer with the minimum restriction to the air flow through the product The dicer knives must be kept very sharp at all times and it is good practice to change these once per eight hour shift. They sho honed and reassembled on the carrier block ready for the next change. The dicers should be lubricated by a flow of water, through the feed hopper, to assist with the removal of starch from the cut surfaces of each potato Blanching is carried out either in a steam or a hot water blancher. As sulphite is invariably added to the product, steam blanching will need to b followed by a sulphite spray 3-6 min in flowing steam at 99C should be an adequate steam blanch for potato dice, and this is followed by sulphiting to level of 250 ppm in the final product As, however, most dehydrators use additional additives such asProcess After washing and destoning, potatoes should be well peeled by lye or steam. If lye is used, an immersion time of 3 min at 92"C, and a sodium hydroxide concentration of 15-18 percent should give adequate msults but, again, times and concentrations will have to be varied according to the time of the season and the varieties. Stored potatoes are usually more difficult to peel than those freshly lifted. Peeling losses will range from 20 to 30 percent. Peeling is followed by washing under a powerful water spray in a brush washer or reel washer. The former method is preferred by some processors, as the brush action is particularly effective in scouring and cleaning growth cracks and other excrescences softened by the lye h-eatment. Alternatively flash steam peeling may be used, and this is now usually preferred. The peeled potatoes pass from the washer on to trimming and inspection belts. Inspection must be very thorough here, and particular watch must be kept for grit, or foreign matter, which may have escaped the precleaning operation, as, if these enter the cutters, considerable damage will be done to the dicing knives, which are quite expensive to replace. With good quality raw material, well peeled, each person on the trimming belt should be able to handle 170-180kg per hour. The trimmed potatoes are conveyed to the cutters. A standard size of dice for dehydration is 9.5mm cube but this can be varied by changing the first, or slicing, knife position to give a thinner initial cut (down to 2mm) or the spacing of the stripping and the dicing knives can be altered to change the other two dimensions. It must be remembered, however, that reducing the thickness of the cut may create a dense 'bed' condition in the dryer, necessitating a lighter loading per square foot of drying area. A 9.5mm cube, therefore, is the ideal size for optimum throughput, as this particle size forms a satisfactory permeable bed in the dryer with the minimum restriction to the air flow through the product. The dicer knives must be kept very sharp at all times and it is good practice to change these once per eight hour shift. They should then be honed and reassembled on the carrier block Eady for the next change. The dicers should be lubricated by a flow of water, through the feed hopper, to assist with the removal of starch from the cut surfaces of each potato. Blanching is carried out either in a steam or a hot water blancher. As sulphite is invariably added to the product, steam blanching will need to be followed by a sulphite spray. 3-6 min in flowing steam at 99°C should be an adequate steam blanch for potato dice, and this is followed by sulphiting to a level of 250 ppm in the final product. As, however, most dehydrators use additional additives, such as I18