Abstract: The pillow cutter of a food product extrusion system is provided with motor driven roller means designed to pull filled, or unfilled, extrusions, including hollow tubes, or ropes, of extruded food material from the extrusion die head. The ropes are then cut in various shapes such as square, diamond or triangle pillows, sticks or bars. The roller means constitute rotatable base rollers sized to effect telescopic assembly with removable, interchangeable, tubular, cylindrical cutter sleeves engraved on the outer peripheral surface of the sleeves with variable cutting patterns so the user of the system can optionally change the cutting patterns by selective choice of cutter sleeves.

Abstract: A bulk density sampling method and device whereby formed product is flowed through a vertically disposed passage of pre-determined size. The passage is temporarily obstructed to collect and weigh a known volume of product upon which to base a calculation of bulk density and the generation of a control signal for regulating a multi-tasking processor to constantly monitor, control, and display speed, head gap position, temperature, feed rate and target moisture.