Heating of very thick products

HI,

I work for a small company that manufactures fruit paste and fruit concentrate blending.  In winter our products/raw materials become thick and viscous which need to be heated up so that we can get them out of the packaging.  We have reviewed a number of options for doing this:

• Hot room
• Hot bands to place around the containers
• hot blanket
• hot pads (for the containers to sit on).

The raw materials are in large units, ie 1000 Lts or 250kg.

The 1000Lt product is in IBC's and the 250Kg product is large tubs with lids.  We currently manually dig out the product from the tubs.  

I was just wondering if anyone out there is using any of the equipment I have listed above or any thing different to heat up their products.  We have limited access to steam, to we can not run a heat exchanger with out considerable capital expenditure.  We also do not want to degregate the quality of the product by using high temperatures.

Thanking you in advance for any information you may share.

Increasing the surface area of the material will always allow quicker heating and cooling; Is there a way you can modify your process or do you need to stick with tubs? 

What about large handheld cheese wires? They will not heat up your product, but will slice through pieces easily for removal in sections.

Or maybe a 2 layer bin/table where you could run hot water between the layers?

Client of ours has a similar situation and they built a temperature controlled room that provides a constant temperature and when the season changes the control unit shuts down. Their hold period in the room is for the double the normal length of time it takes for the product to be transported.  

Thus,  if product A ships from company B and the total time is 10 hours in transit, the product is held at optimum temperture for 20 hours prior to usage.  This does not allow for product breakdown nor structure change, flavor change, etc.

Dear Julz,

Glenn Oster gave a good and workable option to improve your situation. It's worth testing it on a small scale and than upscale the solution. To be sure that there is no loss of sensorial aspects you can do sensorial tests.

Don't forget to update your process flows and HACCP plan accordingly, during the test phase and once implemented.

Kind regards,

Gerard Heerkens

I only talk about thick printing inks, often these ink buckets sit on heated pads to keep them a little warm and allow them to flow better. 

Pads are the cheaper option, if you can still get the temperature control you need.

Have a nice day. :bye:

Regards,

Simon

Julz Hi, in a different life i used IBC jacket warmers for 1000kg's supply of a really thick sauce concentrate which we were supplied, to make it workable. Just have to watch time vs temperature so you don't get something nasty growing. 

Jimmy

Julz Hi, in a different life i used IBC jacket warmers for 1000kg's supply of a really thick sauce concentrate which we were supplied, to make it workable. Just have to watch time vs temperature so you don't get something nasty growing. 

 

Jimmy

Thanks Grumpy Jimmy for the response. 

How long would you need to heat the thick sauce concentrate wit the jacket warmer? Hours, days or weeks?

Thanks

Julz Hi,

Defrost time depends on recipe, water, thickening agent for example. I would work with the supplier to find optimal temperature and they could maybe put you in contact  with other sites that use the same product and give you their solution.

Buying in bulk is cheaper but in the long all the time wasted trying to break it down and wastage in materials, could unbalance the cost. 

At one site i had a butter room which was set at temperature X, received butter frozen and would bring the butter to a workable temperature in  X amount of time but then would only have a limited life. As soon as you start warming and get to critical temperatures for bugs to grow then it needs to be used. If you have a size that is supposed to last days, weeks....... then it's maybe too big for your usage. 

. 

Another option if you are using 1000kg at a time is an collapsible box with a single use bag that you can cut open, ask if you can have supply this way as they are the same size as a normal IBC. 

Is it getting less workable while in storage on your site or when it is supplied? If its on site then IBC warmers could be used to keep it from going down in temperature but match the normal temperature from the rest of the year or rather than a few IBC warmers have a room regulated at a certain temperature. 

If its coming in too cold then agree a specification with the supplier where it has a minimum temp for supply.

Find out what the critical temperature is for when it becomes unworkable, the worst case temperature and the most appropriate temperature. How much room do you have? How much do you use in one vessel/recipe? Do you pasturise later on in the process? The answers might be able to help give more specific advice

Thanks

Jimmy