Rice husk is unloaded into the complex tank and is driven into the boiler through chain conveyors and elevators.

The rice husk combustion heats the water at 150°C under a 7 bar pressure. The superheated waters returns in 140°C.

Treatment and purification of exhaust gases before being released into the atmosphere are carried out.

The ash is collected and palletized.

The durum wheat delivery is the first stage in securing the quality of the raw materials. The process is based on the following steps:

- Loaded trucks are weighed upon arrival and main load delivery details are recorded.
- Sample is taken from 6 selected points of the load using a telescopic control arm.

- Necessary product analyses are carried out on the spot at the quality control laboratory.

- Durum wheat is cleared for unloading to the durum wheat processing mill reservoir, upon meeting requirements. If no requirements are met, load is rejected.

If you’re cooking your food properly on your barbeque, you’re getting delightful results every time. However, all too frequently, people are falling victims to very common barbeque myths. It’s not because we’re gullible or stupid in any way. Many barbeque myths are so well known and so wide spread that they are more frequently passed on as truth than they are as the myths that they truly are.

For example, many people love to try to get perfect grill lines on their barbequed foods. Either straight lines, or the more fancy criss-crossed ones are often accepted as a sure sign of the expert barbeque chef. What this involves is flipping your meat, so that the lines are on the both sides. However, many people don’t ever get to achieve this art form because they have fallen victim to one of the main barbeque myths. They believe that flipping or poking your grilled food makes it tough – this is a myth. In fact, flipping your meat not only creates great grill lines, but it also makes certain that you cook more evenly. While you read up on the swath of information available for providing tips and tricks for the best results on your barbeque, make sure that your source is reliable. While some of this information is very helpful, much of it can be exaggerated or based on what the author “thinks” rather than what is actually known.

The belief that poking or flipping your food will let all of the juices out and make it tough would only work if your food was shaped exactly like a balloon – which it isn’t. Meat is made up of hundreds of small cells, each filled with its own moisture and juices. Should you poke your meat with a fork while it’s on the grill, you may pop one or two cells, but it won’t let all of the juices out…only that of the cells you’ve punctured. Certainly, if you repeatedly stab and puncture your meat, many of the cells will be broken, and you’ll lose a great deal of your juices, but other than in a horror movie, there really isn’t any reason to treat your meat that way.

Similarly, flipping your meat doesn’t let a great deal of the juices out either. After all, flipping doesn’t puncture any of the cells, so as long as you don’t flip it and smack it hard, then you won’t lose much by the way of juices at all. Be gentle…it’s already dead!

The problem with flipping your meat on the grill lies when cooks use their spatulas and other tools to squish the meat after it has been flipped, often trying to squeeze out the grease. By flattening the cells in the meat, much of the moisture and juices are pushed out, leaving the meat dry.

So flip those burgers and poke that steak! Get those grill lines just the way you want them. Your food will always be good and juicy, just like the pros do it.

The wheat passes through the mill complex, where it is pre-cleaned in order to remove most of the impurities. The pre-cleaning process is carried out using

- A magnet which retains any metal shavings

- A separator which sifts straws, stones and metal objects 

After pre-cleaning, it is stored in silos under adequate ventilation conditions.

The dampeners moisturise the grains with a proportionate amount of water to prepare them properly for the de-corticating machines.

The de-corticating machines rub the hard outer layers of grains, removing as a result a part of bran. This part, the so-called de- corticated bran is unfit for human consumption and becomes for this reason a product for animal feed.

The de-corticated grains are then weighed and passed on to the milling process.

The milling process consists of:

- Roller mill machines which crush the de-corticated grains creating numerous granules of various sizes

- Plansifter sieves and semolina purifiers which sort the granules based on their size

- Aspiration systems which forward the granules according to their size to different roller machines to be crushed further and to different plansifter sieves and semolina purifiers to be sorted further.

The process is repeated until all granules obtain suitable size for pasta production (less than 500μm).

Semolina and the bran for whole grain pasta are weighed separately inside the mill complex. Then they

are transferred to the respective storage silos with a total capacity of 1000 tons located inside the pasta

factory, next to the production lines. Laboratory analyses are carried out at the same time to continuously ensure appropriate quality parameters.

After storage in silos, wheat is led to the mill complex, where it is weighed and passed to the cleaning process. Cleaning aims to further minimise impurities thanks to more machines added such as:

- Additional magnets

- Additional separators

- Additional aspirators

- Stone separators removing the remaining stones from the wheat.

- Optical sorters removing grains of other cereal

- Cylindrical sorters removing broken durum wheat grains.

When durum wheat is passed through all stages of the cleaning process, it is led to dampening and de- corticating process.

Ingredient Dosage and Mixing

Semolina is uniformly mixed with a suitable amount of filtered water in a horizontal centrifugal single-axis speed mixer, creating a mixture. Semolina is added through a volumetric feeder from the storage silos of semi-finished products and water, after being filtered by reverse osmosis filters, is entered through a regulating valve from the water supply network. During mixing, starch and semolina proteins are combined with water and a protein matrix starts developing, gluten, which is viscous material with elastic properties.

Mixture Kneading

After initial mixing, the mixture is kneaded in a double-shaft kneader until fully hydrated and transformed into dough. Then this dough is forwarded to the vacuum kneader, allowing the elimination of air from the dough and the improvement of its colour. Overall, the kneading process requires 12 to 14 minutes. The formation of gluten matrix is completed during the kneading process.

Dough Compression and Shaping

The complete dough is forwarded to the moulds using the compression screws. The final part of extrusion at 100 bar is dough shaping by dispensing it in the moulds and the shapers. Before dispensing in the shapers, the dough is filtered through filters attached to themoulds. The shapers’ design isa key element to achieve optimal results in terms of shape, size and thickness of the finished pasta

The moulds have a rectangular cross-section for long pasta and a round cross-section for short. The moulds have numerous circular holes uniformly fabricated for the attachment of shapers. Apart from the moulds, there arespecial devices for cutting “penne” shaped pasta that areused in short pasta production lines.

Shapers, like moulds, have also holes that define the final design of the pasta. The holes of shapers are either made of bronze or Teflon. Bronze gives the final pasta roughness and clean yellow colour, while Teflon gives smoothness and bright yellow colour.

The moulds have a rectangular cross-section for long pasta and a round cross-section for short. The moulds have numerous circular holes uniformly fabricated for the attachment of shapers. Apart from the moulds, there arespecial devices for cutting “penne” shaped pasta that areused in short pasta

production lines.

Shapers, like moulds, have also holes that define the final design of the pasta. The holes of shapers are either made of bronze or Teflon. Bronze gives the final pasta roughness and clean yellow colour, while Teflon gives smoothness and bright yellow colour.

Spreader

The dough has turned into multiple strains of pasta. These strains are passed through a hot ventilation system so they do not stick together and are spread onto sticks remaining there throughout the course of the following processes.

Pre-dryer

Τhe temperature reaches 70 °C and the average residence time of pasta ranges from 45 minutes to 1 hour depending on the line of each manufacturer and type of pasta produced. At the end of the pre-drier, moisture of the product should be 18% (+/- 1%).

Drier

The temperature exceeds 85 °C and the average residence time of pasta in the drier ranges from 6 to 10 hours depending on the line of each manufacturer and type of pasta produced. At the end of the drier, moisture of the product should be 12% (+/- 0.5%).

Cooler

In the cooler, the temperature is 25 °C and the average residence time of pasta ranges from 30 to 40 minutes depending on the line of each manufacturer and type of pasta produced. At the end of the cooler, moisture of the product should be 11% (+/- 0.5%).

Storage Silos

In the storage silos, pasta are stored at different floors and are kept there until they are packaged. In the remove and cut unit, pasta are taken off from the hangers and cut to their final length and transferred to the appropriate packaging line.

Cutting Disk Unit

Pasta are cut by a cutting disk unit mounted underneath the die. The CDUdevices intended to cut pasta in “penne” shape, have their own cutting disk unit. After cutting, pasta have acquired their final form.

Vibrating Pre-dryer,

In the vibrating pre-dryer, the temperature reaches 100 °C and the average residence time of pasta ranges from 3 to 5 minutes depending on the line of each manufacturer and type of pasta produced. At the end of the vibrating pre-drier, moisture of the product should be 25% (+/- 1%).

Drier

In the dryer, the temperature exceeds 85°C and the average residence time of pasta in the drier ranges from 3 to 4 hours depending on the line of each manufacturer and type of pasta produced. At the end of the drier, moisture of the product should be 12% (+/- 0.5%).

Cooler

In the cooler, the temperature is 25 °C and the average residence time ranges from 8 to 10 minutes depending on the line of each manufacturer and type of pasta produced. At the end of the cooler, moisture of the product should be 11% (+/- 0.5%).

Storage Silos

In the storage silos, pasta are stored at different floors and are kept there until they are packaged. In the remove and cut unit, pasta are taken off from the hangers and cut to their final length and transferred to the appropriate packaging line.

When moulds are replaced, they are thoroughly cleaned to maintain the hygiene standards. They are initially transported in a specially designed area, the mould washing and storage area. There, they are placed in mould washing machines and are washed. After washing and drying, they are kept in shelving units, where they are stored until next use. Before use, they are also cleaned and washed.