Process for the production of a low-sugar, alcohol-free beverage

Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Inhibiting chemical or physical change of food by contact... – Treating liquid material

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Details

426490, 426599, 426616, A23L 200, A23L 208, A23L 270, A23L 274

Patent

active

054965772

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a process for the production of a low-sugar, alcohol-free beverage, especially fruit juice from sweet juices of plant products, especially fruits, grapes, berries and other produce, more particularly, to such a process in which the raw juice is fed to a desugarization process.
A physical process for desugarizing beverages is known by WO 89/10703, in which the sugar is removed from the raw juice in a membrane separating unit by suitable selection of the membrane. The substances remaining in the retentate or in the permeate after the removal of the sugar are again recycled in the process or in the end product.
With this process, a high selectivity and also an improvement in quality are already achieved. But partially the RSK values for standard juices are still not quite reached especially for the low-molecular components such as acids, minerals, etc. The consequence of this is a reduced taste experience and a lower rating in the context of the legal allowability of the beverage which finally results in a decrease in value.
Further, nonphysical desugarization processes have become known (e.g., CH-PS 632 137 and EP-OS 0382010), in which the sugar contained in the initial liquid is partially or completely broken down by the effect of enzymes or microorganisms. In these known, fermentative or microbiological desugarization processes, untypical by-products develop in the beverage from secondary reactions, which distort the original nature of the beverage. It is therefore desirable to prevent this effect. Moreover, these known processes are also relatively expensive, since biological or fermentative processes operate with relatively small space-time yields, which requires relatively large equipment.


SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The object of the invention is therefore to provide a process of the above-mentioned type, with which a further improvement of the product quality with relatively low production costs is achieved.
According to the invention, this object is achieved in that the raw juice is divided before the desugarization process by a preliminary separation into two streams, of which one stream, relative to the raw juice, has a lower acid/sugar ratio and a second stream having a higher acid/sugar ratio and a lower sugar content, and in that the first stream is fed to the desugarization process and the second stream to the low-sugar juice after the desugarization.
Other embodiments and features of the invention can be found in the claims.
The invention is explained in more detail in the following description and the drawing, which represents several embodiments. There are shown in


BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

FIG. 1 shows a diagrammatic representation of a desugarization process with upstream preliminary separation,
FIG. 2 shows the preliminary separation according to FIG. 1 combined with a dialysis process for the desugarization and
FIG. 3 shows the preliminary separation according to FIG. 1 combined with a nanofiltration process for the desugarization.


DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The process represented diagrammatically and without internal cycles in FIG. 1 consists of any known desugarization process 1 upstream to a preliminary separation 2. The sweet raw juice extracted by a supply line 3 from plant products such as fruits, grapes, berries and other produce is introduced into preliminary separation 2. As a process for preliminary separation 2, i.e., certain membrane processes, in particular nanofiltration, dialysis, as well as sorption processes, are suitable. Especially suitable is a nanofiltration process, which operates with a membrane of 5 to 20% NaCl retention, measured at 3500 ppm of NaCl, 40 bars and 25 degrees C.
In preliminary separation 2, the raw juice is divided into two streams, of which retentate-side stream A is fed by a line 4 directly to desugarization process 1. Relative to the initial raw juice, stream A has a lower acid/sugar ratio and a higher sugar content. Permeate-side stream B, which exhibits an elev

REFERENCES:
patent: 4902518 (1990-02-01), Lang et al.
patent: 5254174 (1993-10-01), Hansen et al.
patent: 5403604 (1995-04-01), Black, Jr. et al.

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