Do You Need A Destoner?
One of our best services we provide to customers is education. Our goal is to provide enough knowledge and know-how to our customers to help them make an informed decision. From an engineering standpoint, we tend to focus on process flow to create optimum conditions for consistency and performance. A simple, but common question we receive is if a destoner is necessary in a process. Our initial answer for that question is “it depends.”
The purpose of the destoner is to complement the cleaner and provide a further level of preparation to the oilseed prior to extrusion. As mentioned in a previous blog, the cleaner’s purpose is to remove the FM (foreign matter) such as items larger or smaller than the oilseed. What’s leftover is anything that is the same size as the seed. A cleaner will typically handle over 90% of the cleaning requirements for a plant. For some, this is more than enough to provide a clean product to extrude. With that in mind, why use a destoner at all?
The main deciding factor requires knowing your supplier and the incoming quality of the seed. In some markets, the seed is typically very clean and only using a cleaner yields high-quality seed ready for extrusion. In other markets, we know there are suppliers that intentionally add stones and other FM to a bag to make it weigh more. In that case, of course we recommend a destoner. Any stone that makes its way to extrusion will eventually be ground, but the wear and tear on equipment and parts will cause premature wear and inferior product performance.
What if you’re not sure about your supplier? In that case, we’d recommend leaving room for a destoner in the process line so that it can easily be added in the future. This is likely the best case for most facilities in the United States due to a clean supply chain. Overseas markets will typically require a destoner unless the supply chain is very reliable. With this in mind, we use our experience in various markets to help customers make an informed decision that best suits their needs.
Contact the sales representative for your region for more information.
