The Tater Tot in the style of Dixie....or in Cali

northGAcock

@SGH and all others..... just curious if you have made tater tots yourself. I was in California a couple of weeks ago, and two of the restaurants I ate at made their own. I get that you mix the shredded potatoes with spices.....and roll them as opposed to form. Have you or others seen a cutting device that makes them uniform in length. Don't get me wrong, I could care less, but curious how they get the house made ones so uniform in length. I get the rolling a log of them can provide uniform thickness....but curious how they achieve the uniform length. They either some tot cutting fools....or fools cutting tots. 

SGH

Bump for retort.

SGH

Yeah we have made tater tots. But always in very small batches so everything was simply cut by hand. As to your question of how do house producers get them so uniform. I honestly don't know for sure. But if I were to take a shot in the dark, my guess would be that they are using a small scale press/mold or some type of a extruder. Again, this is just a educated guess on my part. I could be off by miles. I took a shot at googling (I'm sure you did too) and came up with nothing as far as small scale manufacturing goes. But with that said, rather it's what they are using or not, a extruder of some type or press/mold would certainly do the trick. However they may have something all together different. You have got me curious about it now. Wish I could offer more my friend. 

northGAcock

I appreciate your insight. It seems suspicious to me when they market house made...and then big you a huge portion and they are all uniform as if they were manufactured. It seems to me there is some way to automate it. Next time out to Cali (and it want be long)....and I going to probe behind the scenes to see how they do it.....I will report back.

SciAggie

@northGAcock @SGHI don't know nuttin' about nuthin' but could potatoes/the tot mixture be extruded through a sausage grinder? I'm just thinking out loud so to speak here.

northGAcock

SciAggie said:

@northGAcock @SGHI don't know nuttin' about nuthin' but could potatoes/the tot mixture be extruded through a sausage grinder? I'm just thinking out loud so to speak here.

I don't have one but in principal I would think it could. The question remains however if this method was used.....how did they get uniformity in length. Seems like a lot of knife work.....but believe there has to be a template of blades of some sort. Just something that keeps me up at night....ok not really but.....