In the case of small and medium-sized pasta production units, the static dryer is the most suitable, up to a production capacity of 500 kg. These are semi-automatic lines, with a greater or lesser degree of automation, depending on their hourly production capacity.

These dryers have a fresh pasta input capacity ranging from 100 kg to 800 kg. Heating is provided by electric heating elements or hot water coils. The hot water coils are operated by a superheated water generator. The choice of hot water coils can be considered as the capacity of the dryers increases (from 400 kg) and the number of dryers on the same line increases. These factors must be correlated with the cost of the energy source to which users have access locally: electricity, gas or fuel oil.

The main advantage of static dryers is that they dry at a relatively low temperature (around 40-42°C), which allows all the nutritional qualities of the wheat to be preserved. On the other hand, the drying time is between 10 and 15 hours, depending on the type of pasta and raw material.

The industrial production units are fully automated and work continuously. The drying phase starts systematically in a pre-dryer, which will transport the pulp to the drying tunnel where the temperature is raised to 90°C. The throughput time is much shorter. The passage time is much shorter and at the exit, the pulp is cooled and then packaged or stored in a silo until packaging.

This high temperature means that some nutritional properties are lost, but there is a clear gain in productivity.
Shelf life of dried pasta: 3 years with water / about 20 months with eggs.

Drying the pasta: a step not to be underestimated
Whatever the drying method, it must be rigorous and offer every guarantee of quality, otherwise the pasta, even if it is apparently dry, risks deteriorating rapidly: poor cooking properties, brittleness or, worse still, rising damp in its packaging, with mould. This is why it is important to use drying cells with high-quality electronic components and to avoid overloading the pasta trays.

Standard dryers calculate their capacity by loading each pasta tray with 4 kg. Thus, the fresh pasta input capacity will be 100 kg for standard dryers with 25 trays, 200 kg for 50 trays, etc.

TECHNOPAST considers that this does not allow a homogeneous drying, so it is recommended to load the trays with 3.3 kg of pasta.

To remedy this overload, while maintaining the advertised capacities, TECHNOPAST prefers to offer pasta dryers with 31 trays per trolley. With this principle, a 100 kg drying cell, containing a trolley with 31 trays loaded at 3.3 kg, contains 102 kg of fresh pasta as input. Whereas if the 25 trays of a standard 100 kg drying trolley were loaded at 3.3 kg, they would contain only 82.5 kg. This represents a capacity loss of 70 kg of fresh dough as input for a 400 kg dryer.

Our static dryers also benefit from advanced technology, high-precision measuring devices and specially designed internal geometry for optimal circulation of ventilated air and heating.

The vibratory pre-dryer (trabatto)
The vibratory pre-dryer is indispensable in lines using drying tunnels, but it is also recommended for pre-drying before entering the static dryer. The pulp will pass through the different levels of the machine (7 in general) where it will be subjected to ventilation with moderate heating, thus avoiding the risk of sticking, thanks to the vibrations. This treatment will also remove about 4% of the moisture and shorten the drying time by about 3 hours. It will also prevent the deformation of certain formats and improve the appearance of the pastes.