An enrober is a machine used in the confectionery industry to coat a food item with a coating medium, typically chocolate. Foods that are coated by enrobers include nuts, ice cream, toffee, chocolate bars, biscuits and cookies. Enrobing with chocolate extends a confection's shelf life. [1]
The process of enrobing involves placing the items on the enrober's feed band, which may consist of a wire mesh or containers in which the confection to be enrobed are placed, with each container having drain holes to recover excess chocolate. The enrober maintains the coating medium at a controlled constant temperature and pumps the medium into a flow pan. The medium flows from the flow pan in a continuous curtain and bottoming bed that the food items pass through, completely coating them. A wire mesh conveyor belt then transports the coated confection to a cooling area. [2]
Output mainly comes from the belt width and cooling tunnel length. Excluding compound chocolate, most chocolates need to spend eight minutes in a cooling tunnel. [3]
The enrober machine was invented in France in 1903, [4] brought to the United States, and perfected to perform the work of at least twenty people. [5]
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