Source: Post-Register
A partnership between Idaho Steel and Kiremko has recently started selling the largest industrial drum dryer on the market.
The new drum is eight feet in diameter, 21 feet long and weighs around 100,000 pounds. The previous largest one made by Idaho Steel was six feet by 20 feet.
Drum dryers use electricity to turn the device and high-pressure steam to dehydrate the potatoes inside of them into flakes. Idaho Steel Chief Technical Officer Alan Bradshaw said that large dryer can produce roughly 2,500 pounds of dried potato flakes every hour while using the same amount of energy as smaller industrial dryers.
“It’s very unique that right here in Idaho Falls, we can build a machine of this specialty and this magnitude that ships all over the world,” Bradshaw said.
The new dryer is part of a series of projects the company has made with Kiremko, a Netherlands-based company that is one of the other large producers of food processing equipment in the world. The two companies previously have worked together on production line equipment that shapes french fries and tater tots.
Several of the new dryers have already been ordered by customers in the United States and Europe and Bradshaw said the machines should be installed and start being used over the next six months.
Idaho Steel has been producing equipment in Idaho Falls since 1918 and built rotating dryer drums for the last 25 years.
