Potato chips are thin slices of deep fried potato of about 2% moisture that come in a variety of flavors – from the traditional salted and barbeque, ranch and cheddar favorites to more gourmet and ethnic flavors.
Most establishment use white-skinned potatoes for chips compared to 10% that use red skinned potatoes.
Many reason were given for preferred skin color. These included tuber quality, price, availability and economical oil consumption.
The process started with peeling and rinsing the potato. Peeling should remove as little of the cortisol tissue, which contains 40-50% of the total solids.
While rinsing removes surface starch which prevents potato slices from adhering to each other during drying and sugar.
At the same time, rotten, spots, deep black eyes, and other physical defects are removed.
Then sliced into 1 mm slices using a food processor.
The slices were washed afterwards in warm water several times to remove surface starch. Blanching is carried out to improve the color of the finished product – the process may reduce browning during the frying process.
About 60% of the establishment blanch before frying.
Then the slices are deep fried for 3 minutes at temperature ranging from 180-185 degree C. Water is removed from slice and is replaced by oil amounting to as much as 35-40% of the finished chips.
The oil or fat used does not seem affect product quality. Oils and fat used were either vegetable-based or corn based.
When the temperature of the slices is near 150 degree C the vacuole of the tuber cells began to breakdown sugar are released and the chip starts to develop color.
The chips are allowed to drain afterwards for 2-3 minutes before transferred into a stainless food container.
Potato chips processing
