Method and UHT installation for treating heat-sensitive liquid food products

摘要

The invention concerns a process for the treatment of heat-sensative fluid food products (P) in a UHT system (1), particularly dairy such as milk, cream, milk protein concentrate. The invention has the task, in a UHT system whose basic structure using an infusion chamber is described in [4], of ensuring an equal and constant dwell time as well as an equal and constant temperature trend for the entire treated food product downstream of an outlet of a mechanism in which the food product is subjected to direct heating by the introduction of steam, and to minimize fouling during heat maintenance of the food product in this area. This is achieved using process technology in that:
The heated food product (P*) upstream of its heat main undergoes a predetermined pressure increase (Δp) at a predetermined, unchanging location, andThe pressure level upstream of the location before the relief lies above the pressure upstream of the location before the pressure increase (Δp) (FIG. 1).

主权项

1. A process for the treatment of heat-sensitive fluid food products (P) in a system for ultra-high temperature processing (UHT system) (1), in which steam (D) directly heats the fluid food product (P) in a heating chamber to form a germ-free state, a heated food product (P*) is kept hot in a heat maintainer section for a defined and controlled period, and in which water in a quantity corresponding to that of the previously introduced steam (D) is removed in a vacuum chamber from a heated food product (P**) by means of pressure relief,
characterized in that the steam heated food product (P*) is pumped from the heating chamber through a pump system into the heat maintainer section and through a pressure relief valve into the vacuum chamber, wherein the steam heated product is subjected to a predetermined pressure increase (Δp) in the pump system upstream of the predetermined, unchanging heat maintainer section, the pressure level upstream of the vacuum chamber before the pressure relief is higher than the pressure level upstream of the pump system before the pressure increase (Δp), the pressure increase (Δp) is specified in such a way that the heated food product (P**) has a system pressure (p) upstream of and directly before its pressure relief that is at least 1.5 bar greater than that upstream of the pump system pressure increase (Δp), and the system pressure (p) downstream of the pump system pressure increase (Δp) is decoupled from that upstream.