Food and feed processors can achieve increased capacity and highest product quality with the addition of Clextral’s Preconditioner+ to optimize their extrusion process. Designed for operation with both single screw and twin screw extruders, Preconditioner+ units are engineered with dual sets of counter-rotating, intermeshing and adjustable paddles that ensure perfect mixing, plus liquid injection ports which can be precisely positioned to maximize liquid ingredient absorption. These features generate homogeneous, pre-treated material for top quality products at higher extruder throughputs with reduced SME (specific mechanical energy) and residence time. With lower torque and shear requirements, extruder screws and barrel will also experience less wear. The new design achieves higher product temperatures (to 205˚F) for maximum starch gelatinization prior to extrusion. Clextral’s Advanced Filling Control (AFC) features a conveyance screw that rotates against the product flow to increase both the filling ratio and residence time. Top flexibility is ensured by the AFC: its variable speed allows the adjustment of residence times for different recipes, and it can empty a full preconditioner tank for cleaning and recipe change in less than two minutes when the bottom screw rotation is reversed.

Preconditioner+ has a hygienic design of stainless steel with minimum retention zones and full accessibility for cleaning. It is easily installed on an existing extrusion line, with models for product flow capacities from 220 to 50,000 lbs/hour of dry mix. With powerful motor drives for the mixing paddles and independent operation of the AFC device, these preconditioners deliver reliable, long term performance on the processing line.