Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Basic ingredient lacteal derived other than butter...
Patent
1998-11-24
2000-04-11
Wong, Leslie
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Basic ingredient lacteal derived other than butter...
99453, 99454, 99455, 426588, A23C 100
Patent
active
060485655
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a process and apparatus for converting liquid by-products, such as whey and permeates of whey, derived from cheese making processes into substantially free-flowing, non-caking powdery products as well as use of the process and the apparatus.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Raw whey is the liquid by-product resulting from traditional cheese making and casein manufacturing including acid whey, sweet whey, salt whey, permeates from the production of whey protein or milk protein concentrates and lactose etc., motherliquor from lactose crystallization, demineralised whey and similar products.
In the present context the term whey will be used for liquid raw whey which may have been subjected to various pre-treatments whose purpose is to improve the bacteriological quality, remove possible cheese fines and to reduce a possible content of fat and salts.
Depending on origin the whey contains 5.5-6.5% total solids, wherein 0.7-0.9% protein, 0.05% fat, 4.2-4.6% lactose and 0.5-0.8% ash.
Usually, after a number of pre-treatments, the aqueous whey is a solution in which the lactose is in an equilibrium of 60% beta- and 40% alpha molecular form. This mixture is hygroscopic and unsuitable for creating a free flowing, non-caking powder.
However, a suitable powder can be obtained when a major part of the lactose is converted to the alpha monohydrate form, which is done by crystallization.
DESCRIPTION OF PRIOR ART
From the prior art there are known several described processes for converting liquid by-products, such as whey and permeates of whey derived from cheese making processes into substantially free-flowing, non-caking powdery products.
At the production processes commonly carried out by industry today crystallization is accomplished in batches by an inexpedient time-consuming and energy inefficient, non-continuos procedure. The space requirement for the process apparatus is furthermore voluminous. By these processes (Masters, Spray Drying Handbook, 4 ed. 1985, p. 596) the whey product with 50 to 65% total solids is immediately after evaporation cooled slowly batchwise in large space requirering tanks provided with slow moving agitators. After crystallization the concentrate is spray dried to its final moisture content and cooled in a fluid bed.
At yet another similar prior art process with multiple crystallization stages, (Masters 4 ed. 1985, p. 597, FIG. 15.12), a first crystallization stage is obtained in large tanks as just described above. The concentrate is then spray dried to a moisture content of about 10 to 12% and the wet powder is left on a continuous belt conveyer for final crystallization. The product is then milled and dried to its final moisture in a fluid bed. In this way a non-hygroscopic, free flowing powder with up til 95% of the lactose may be obtained.
From U.S. Pat. No. 2,336,461 is known a process, in which liquid whey is initially concentrated in a multiple effect vacuum evaporator and further concentrated on a heated drum to a substance with 50 to 65% total solids (TS). The crystallization is carried out in a space requiring apparatus by depositing the pasty concentrate on a slow moving and length requiring belt where the concentrate rests, while the lactose crystallizes to form the alpha mono-hydrate. The residence time on the belt is typically 10 minutes and moisture in the pasty material provides the crystal water to form the alpha monohydrate. Product from the belt is milled and a substantially free-flowing, non-caking powder is obtained.
In a more recent described procedure (U.S. Pat. No. 5,006,204) the belt is substituted by a slowly rotating disk to receive partially dried whey powder from the spray dryer and deliver it to the fluid bed while permitting time for crystallization.
The mentioned prior art processes all have several drawbacks.
First, the energy efficient evaporation process can only be used to concentrate the whey to 50 to 65% TS while the rest of the water evaporation requires a less energy-efficient air dryer.
Seco
REFERENCES:
patent: 1763633 (1930-06-01), Simmons
patent: 2126807 (1938-08-01), Pebbles
patent: 2336461 (1943-12-01), Beardslee
patent: 3537860 (1970-11-01), Moore et al.
patent: 5006204 (1991-04-01), Jensen
"Influence de la cristallisation du lactose dans le concentre de serum sur l'hygroscopicite et l'agglomeration de la poudre de serum", Revue De L'agriculture, vol. 28, No. 4, 1975, pp. 963-975, XP002034855.
Abstract DATABASE WPI, Section Ch, Week 9406, Derwent Publications Ltd., London, GB, Class D13, AN 94-047180, XP002034255 & SU 1 787 413 A (Dairy Ind Res Inst), Jan. 15, 1993.
"Spray Drying Handbook", K. Masters, pp. 596-597, George Godwin, London, 1985.
Getler Jens
Peters Lars Valentin
Thomsen Poul
APV Anhydro AS
Wong Leslie
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