Heat Exchanger Solutions for 5 Challenging Foodstuffs

Heat Exchanger Solutions for 5 Challenging Foodstuffs

January 21, 2025 | Categories: Food - Opinion Piece | by

Thermal treatments using heat exchangers feature in the manufacture of multiple food and drink products. In this article we look at five of the most challenging foodstuffs in terms of thermal processing, and the heat exchanger solutions to help manufacturers handle them correctly.

 

  1. Highly viscous materials

Highly viscous foods, including nut butters and other fat-based products, can be almost solid at low temperatures, creating a number of challenges, including physically moving the material through the heat exchanger. Other considerations include preventing the product from fouling the surface of the heat exchanger (which reduces thermal efficiency) and ensuring an even temperature throughout.

A heavy duty rotating scraped surface heat exchanger (SSHE) is required. The HRS RHD Series was specifically designed for such tough material.

 

  1. Products containing pieces

The challenge when dealing with pieces of product is ensuring the mixture moves through the process at a constant speed without damaging the physical integrity of the product. This type of product can contain anything from small, diced vegetables to large fruit pieces.

For this type of product, the Unicus Series of reciprocal SSHE is perfect.

 

  1. Thermally challenging products

Some ingredients, such as eggs or chocolate, are very sensitive to temperature and must be processed at precise temperatures to avoid damaging the product. Liquid egg, for example, is extremely delicate as the proteins in egg are more sensitive to heat than other products, such as milk or juices. The white and yolk are distinct components with different compositions and behaviours: egg white is denatured at 58°C while yolk is denatured at 65°C.

If not handled correctly, thermal pasteurisation can decrease protein content, change physical characteristics such as texture and colour, and increase product viscosity. Depending on the required handling, corrugated tube heat exchangers or SSHEs (like the HRS Unicus Series) are ideal for processing liquid eggs and other egg-based products.

Tempering chocolate is also extremely difficult. Without strict temperature control, the crystals formed are of different sizes and the resulting chocolate will ‘bloom,’ having a matt appearance and waxy texture.

The HRS R Series has been successfully used to commercially temper chocolate.

 

  1. Delicate products

Many sauces, and some dairy products such as thick cream, need to be handled delicately in order to avoid splitting or shearing, while careful temperature control is required to avoid the creation of undesirable flavours, such as a burnt taste.

The solution is a gentle yet thermally efficient reciprocating SSHE, such as the HRS Unicus Series.

 

  1. Very dense materials

Globally, there is increasing interest in using heat exchangers to process mechanically deboned meat (MDM), meat slurry and viscera components. One advantage is that heat exchangers have the potential to generate products with better quality, at lower cost and with less waste and lower energy consumption than via traditional methods of heating and cooling MDM.

The HRS RHD Series has been employed commercially to keep meat viscera and similar materials below a specified temperature of 4°C.

 

To find out how HRS can help you heat, cool, pasteurise, sterilise or process your challenging food and drink products, please contact us today.