Some implementations of the described methods relate to a process for frying coffee beans (and/or another food product) in a fry medium (such as cooking oil) and then centrifuging the coffee beans (and/or other food product) to remove a significant portion of the fry medium. Although the frying and centrifugation can occur in separate devices, in some cases, the described systems comprise a device that acts as both a fryer and a centrifuge. Indeed, in some cases, after the coffee beans (or other food product) has been fry roasted in a perforated container (e.g., a basket), the fry medium is drained from the container, and container is spun. In some cases, liquid nitrogen is also applied to the beans (or other food product), before and/or after being fry roasted. Other implementations are described.

A substantially closed loop filtration and convection system is configured to move fluid/oil volume within a fryer vat. The vat has a flow directed inlet, which directs flow of cooking fluid in a direction across the bottom of the vat directing the flow of oil and crumbs/debris across the vat, up and across a flow separation portion toward and into a cleaning zone portion of the vat. A crumb tray or crumb/debris catch system is disposed in the cleaning zone adjacent to the vat.

An electric deep cooker including a main body and cover adapted to fully enclose food therein that includes a plurality of main electric heating elements connected along the interior surfaces of the main body and cover and are adapted to uniformly heat and cook food through its entire outer surface from the outside in, and further includes an electric interior heating element attached to the cover and adapted to be placed within the food being cooked and thereby heat and cook the food from the inside out while the plurality of main heating elements heat and cook the food from the outside in, to thereby uniformly and properly heat and cook the food, and in a shorter amount of time, than prior art electric deep cookers, and without the need to rotate the food within the main body of the electric deep cooker.

A frying oil filtration apparatus for safely recycling cooking oil includes a housing having a base portion and a cylindrical sidewall with a hose aperture extending therethrough. A vacuum hose is coupled to the hose aperture to pull used cooking oil through a filter coupled to the housing. A collection pan coupled within the sidewall draws the oil through a vacuum pump to a one-way valve. A reservoir has a reservoir bottom, a reservoir sidewall, and a reservoir rim. The reservoir bottom has a fill aperture extending therethrough and the reservoir sidewall conforms to a reservoir cavity of the filter to be selectively engageable within the filter. The fill aperture is in fluid communication with the one-way valve to allow the reservoir to fill with filtered oil. The reservoir has a pair of reservoir handles coupled to the reservoir rim.

An induction fryer includes: a case having a space with an open upper part; a lid installed by means of a hinge at an upper part of the case; a frying container, installed in the case, for containing oil so as to be able to fry frying ingredients; a frying basket having a space and a fixing rod formed therein so as to be lifted up and down; an induction heating unit installed on an outer circumferential surface of the frying container and having a coil and a plurality of magnets fixed to an assembly body so that electric energy is converted into thermal energy by electromagnetic induction and; and a control unit for electrically controlling the induction heating unit so that the frying ingredients being fried by the electromagnetic induction phenomenon, wherein the coil is fixed only by fixing the magnet to the assembly body without using an adhesive.

A frying oil system (100) generally includes a frying vat (108A) having a frying oil contained therein. The frying vat (108A) can be supplied by two or more oil reservoirs (104A, 104N), such as to establish a desired oil blend of different oils from the two or more oil reservoirs (104A, 104N). A sensor (124A) can be used to provide data indicative of a characteristic of in the frying vat (108A). Establishing the blend can include automatic control taking into account data obtained from a sensor configured to receive sensing information relating to one or more attributes of the frying oil in the frying vat (108A).

A cooking assembly or method of operating the same may include features for receiving an image signal from a camera assembly of a cooking zone; identifying a cooking oil based on the received image signal; and directing a heating element according to the identified cooking oil.

A metal heat exchange tube assembly for a fryer cooking channel of a hot oil fryer for food-process lines has a plurality of elongate, rectangular, longitudinally-extending heat exchange tubes with open inflow and outflow ends; a laterally-extending abbreviated rectangular inflow-manifold tube with a plurality of apertures in a sidewall; and a laterally-extending abbreviated rectangular outflow-manifold tube with the same. The plurality of heat exchange tubes are joined to the inflow-manifold and outflow-manifold tubes with respective alignment among the open ends of the heat exchange tubes and the apertures in the sidewalls of the manifold tubes. The heat exchange tubes comprise a composite construction of an elongate, square-U shaped channel having a web bottom wall and flange sidewalls of a given uniform thickness, and an elongate closure strip welded along spaced seams to the exposed upper edges of the flanges of the channel, thereby forming a thermal oil conduit.

A optical communication system including a source device and an endpoint device. The source device include an array of laser diodes and is configured to drive the laser diodes to project a sequence of patterns into the field of view of the source device to define a set of serially-projected codes, each of which isolated to one respective angular division of the field of view of the source device. The endpoint device receives a serially-projected code from the source device which varies based which angular division of the field of view of the source device is occupied by the endpoint device.

A multi-bank cooking system includes multiple discrete cooking systems sharing common plumbing and integrated safety features. The multi-bank cooking system may include two or more rack-fryer systems, each with discrete frypots, operating mechanisms and cooking controllers. Each of the discrete cooking systems, may share a common plumbing system with integrated valves and controls receiving coordinated safety signals to facilitate safe and efficient operation of the system.