Roasting and glazing apparatus
A roasting and glazing apparatus comprising a roaster housing, a roaster bowl disposed within the roaster housing for receiving a mixture of nuts and sugar, an agitator rotatably mounted within the roaster bowl for mixing the mixture, and a heater controlled to selectively heat the roaster bowl. The agitator includes at least two blades for mixing the nut/sugar mixture during a roasting or glazing operation. The agitator also includes a central hub and each of the blades extends from the central hub and includes a respective substantially vertical component and a respective horizontal component. Each horizontal component has a bottom surface that is disposed adjacent to the floor of the roaster bowl, and the bottom surface extends upward from its front edge to its rear edge at a relief angle of at least 5° relative to the roaster bowl floor. The agitator with such structure is able to prevent/minimize build-up of sugar from the underside of its blades, which in turn prevents blade seizure during operation, among providing other benefits. Each blade may also beneficially have a top surface that extends from the front edge to the rear edge at substantially a 30° angle relative to the roaster bowl floor to provide enhanced mixing and other benefits.
1. A nut roasting and glazing apparatus, comprising:
a roaster housing;
a roaster bowl disposed within the roaster housing, the roaster bowl adapted to receive a mixture of nuts and sugar;
a rotatable drive shaft extending up from a center of a floor of the roaster bowl;
an agitator rotatably mounted to an upper end of the drive shaft, the agitator including at least two L-shaped blades adapted to mix the mixture of nuts and sugar during a roasting or glazing operation of the roasting and glazing apparatus, the agitator including a central hub, each of the L-shaped blades extending from the central hub and including a respective vertical component and a respective horizontal component, the horizontal component of each of the L-shaped blades having front and rear edges and a bottom surface that is disposed adjacent to the floor of the roaster bowl, the bottom surface of the horizontal component of each of the blades extending upward from the front edge to the rear edge at a relief angle of at least 5° relative to the floor of the roaster bowl, the horizontal component of each of the L-shaped blades including a top surface extending from the front edge to the rear edge at an angle, relative to the floor of the roaster bowl, different from the relief angle of the bottom surface relative to the floor of the roaster bowl; and
a heater controlled to selectively heat the roaster bowl during the roasting or glazing operation.
2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the two blades extend from opposite sides of the central hub, and the two blades are identical.
3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the vertical component of each of the blades extends downward from the central hub and the horizontal component extends outward from the vertical component to provide the blades that are L-shaped.
4. The apparatus of claim 3 , wherein, for each of the blades, the horizontal component extends outwardly from the vertical component at a 90° angle.
5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the central hub has a diameter that is four times as large as a width of each of the blades, the width of each of the blades being a distance from the front edge to the rear edge.
6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein, for each of the blades, the top surface extends from the front edge to the rear edge at a 30° angle relative to the floor of the roaster bowl.
7. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the front edge of each of the blades has a thickness that is thinner than a thickness of the rear edge of each of the blades.
8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the roaster bowl includes an upwardly extending center column, the apparatus further comprising a motor assembly disposed beneath the roaster bowl and the drive shaft, rotatably driven by the motor assembly, extending upward through a center column of the roaster bowl, the central hub of the agitator being removably coupled to the upper end of the drive shaft disposed at a position above the center column of the roaster bowl.
9. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the vertical component of each of the blades extends parallel to the center column of the roaster bowl.
10. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising the mixture of nuts and sugar, the mixture of nuts and sugar disposed in the roaster bowl; wherein, for each of the blades, a distance between a bottom of the front edge of the horizontal component and the floor of the roaster bowl is smaller than a size of an amount of the nuts in the roaster bowl so that the amount of the nuts pass over the blades during mixing by the blades during the roasting or glazing operation.
11. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the relief angle of the bottom surface of the horizontal component of each of the blades, relative to the floor of the roaster bowl, is sized to prevent seizing of the rotating blades when items within the mixture pass under the blades during the roasting or glazing operation.
12. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising dried sugar mixture disposed in the roaster bowl and in which a portion of the dried sugar mixture is disposed between the bottom surface of the horizontal component of each of the blades and the floor of the roaster bowl, said portion of the dried sugar mixture having a tensile strength sufficiently low, due to the relief angle of the bottom surface of each horizontal component, to enable the agitator to be manually removed from the roaster bowl without the need to heat the dried sugar mixture within the roaster bowl.
13. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the drive shaft includes a pair of outwardly extending pins protruding from a side surface of the drive shaft.
14. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the center hub of the agitator includes a pair of notches adapted to engage with a pair of pins, to secure the agitator to the drive draft.
15. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the entire bottom surface of the horizontal component of each of the L-shaped blades is flat and extends, along its entire surface, from the floor of the roaster bowl at the same relief angle.