Background/Requirement
Prepared sauces and gravies are manufactured from a number of ingredients including water, meat stock, meat flavors (artificial and natural), preservatives such as sodium benzoate, colorants such as beta carotene, seasonings such as salt, sugar, spices and thickeners such as modified food starch, flour, xanthan gum/guar gums. Traditional agitators and liquefiers have trouble incorporating thickeners leading to the production of “fisheyes” (lumps of un-hydrated thickener surrounded by a gel casing) and very long batch times.
A major manufacturer of prepared sauces and gravies approached Quadro to help them resolve these issues created by their current equipment, a liquefier. The product was thick (about 400 cps), but pourable.
Quadro's Approach
Quadro recommended the use of the Quadro Ytron® In-line ZC Powder Disperser. The Quadro Ytron® In-line Powder Disperser is specifically designed to disperse extremely difficult-to-wet powders such as thickeners, into a liquid stream in a single-pass.
Powder incorporation is achieved by the presence of a significant vacuum in the reactor housing generated by the liquid seal created between the rotor and stator. This vacuum ensures that powders from the hopper above are drawn into the reactor head, where the particles are subjected to intense mechanical shearing PRIOR to hydration into the liquid stream. The result is a homogeneous dispersion of hydrophilic powders WITHOUT “fish-eyes”.
Summary
The Quadro Ytron® In-line ZC Powder Disperser eliminated the problem of “fish-eyes” for the manufacturer thereby reducing the overall batch time from 6 hours to 1 - 3 hours, depending on the ingredient being added.
Related Reading
Topics:
Powder Dispersion