Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Fermentation processes – Of milk or milk product
Patent
1996-04-15
1998-07-21
Beisner, William H.
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Fermentation processes
Of milk or milk product
426 41, 426442, 99452, A01J 2702, A01J 2516
Patent
active
057832374
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to the recovery and reuse of salt solutions in food processing, for instance, in the manufacture of cheese more particularly cheese curd where the cheese curd is salted prior to maturing to form the cheese.
BACKGROUND
When various food products are salted during processing, there is frequently a waste effluent containing salt contaminated with food residues such as fat, protein and carbohydrate (hereinafter referred to as "salty effluent"). This salty effluent is damaging to the environment and is wasteful in product components.
In the manufacture of cheese, salt (sodium chloride or blends of sodium and potassium chloride) is added to the cheese curd by means of either a saturated salt solution or very fine granular salt. Both of these processes currently have a number of difficulties apart from the afore-mentioned environmental and component waste problems. In the case of the addition of a saturated salt solution to the cheese curd, if one is to avoid microbiological contamination, a fresh batch of brine has to be made up for each step of salting the cheese curd and this has obvious economic and technical disadvantages. In the case of using very fine granular salt, there are problems associated with the correct metering of the salt into the cheese curd in that it is of course easier and more accurate to meter a brine solution (liquid) to the cheese curd in comparison with the use of granular salt (solid). Therefore, it will be appreciated that it would be of great advantage to be able to reuse the salt solution contained in the salty whey emanating from the salting treatment of cheese curd and recycle in some way this salt solution and utilize it in the salting of the cheese curd.
Not all of the salt passes into the cheese curd. The addition of salt or saturated salt solution to the cheese curd results in syneresis of the curd causing expulsion of water, whey components (fat, protein, lactose, etc) and some salt. This discharge of "salty whey" contains valuable milk (whey) components but cannot be usefully reprocessed because of the high salt content (e.g. typically 3 to 15%) and is difficult to dispose of because of its high Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and salinity level.
OBJECTIVES
Accordingly, it is a principal objective of the present invention to provide a process and apparatus which will enable recovery and reuse of the salt solution in salty whey thus eliminating the problems referred to above.
It is a more specific objective of the present invention to recover and reuse a salty solution from the "salty whey" obtained as a result of the salting of cheese curd, recover the food residues, and to reuse said salt solution in the salting of the cheese curd.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING
The sole drawing is a flow chart schematically illustrating the present invention.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to one aspect of the invention, there is provided a process for the recovery and reuse of a salt solution obtained from salty whey comprising therefrom, through a membrane filtration system which separates the salt in the form of a salt solution from the whey components; content thereof; concentration of the saturated salt solution obtained in step (4) herein below; required in the salting of the cheese curd; and
According to a preferred aspect of the invention, there is provided a process for the recovery and reuse of a salt solution obtained from salty whey comprising: to produce a salt solution; the salt solution emanating from said device; the temperature of the salt solution emerging from the evaporator to control the concentration of the saturated salt solution referred to in paragraph 4 below; solution to produce a saturated salt solution; and solution, prior to the application of said salt solution to the food product to be salted.
PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
The invention will now be described and illustrated with reference to a preferred embodiment relating to the manufacture of cheese, more particularly salted cheese curd. The process
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Brady Anthony Phillip
Brockwell Ian Percival
Oldham Ian James
Sanderson Wayne Barry
Whitehead Graeme Frank
Beisner William H.
Murray Goulburn Co-Operative Co. Limited
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