Ice Cream Mix Plant Manufacturer: ​​Feautures

Coldtech Mix HTST

Preparing the mix – The ingredients, such as fresh or powdered milk, water, vegetable or animal fat, sugar, stabilisers and emulsifiers are introduced in the first tank. The water necessary to prepare the mix is sent to the selected tank in the quantity set on the liter counter.

Precooling – The heating system supplies the hot water which, via the circulation pump, is sent into the gap of the selected tank, in order to heat the mix up to 55°C. Once the temperature is reached the mix is transferred to the balance holding tank via a centrifugal pump.

Heating – From this tank a second feeding pump collects the mix and sends it to the exchanger in the recovery section. Here the mix is heated to 76°C thanks to the heat release of the already pasteurised mix which, in this way, starts to cool down.

Homogenization – Once the pre-set heating temperature has been reached the mix is sent, via a centrifugal pump, to the homogenizer which, thanks to the elevated pressure of 200 bar, breaks down and reduces the fat molecules in order to obtain a great ice-cream structure

Pasteurisation and holding – From the homogenizer the mix goes to the exchanger in the pasteurisation section, where it reaches a temperature of 85°C thanks to the action of the hot water coming from the heating group. The mix then goes to the tubular holding where it holds for 40 seconds without any changes in temperature. A probe detects the mix’s temperature and, if this is lower than the pre-set pasteurisation level, the appropriate mix flow control valve makes it return to the balance tank to go through the heating and homogenization cycle again. Instead, if the temperature is level with or over the pre-set pasteurisation level, the mix continues its process, starting the cooling phase and entering the recovery section where it is cooled down to 64°C thanks to the heat release provided by the mix in the heating phase. This process allows to significantly reduce energy consumption and it is one of the strong points of a plant of an HTST type.

Cooling – The mix goes directly to the heat exchanger’s precooling section where it is brought down to 34°C via mains or towerwater, and subsequently it enters the final cooling section where it is brought down to 4/6°C via chilled water. The mix is automatically sent to the ageing vats where it will need to stay for approximately 6 hours before it can be used to produce ice-cream. The time necessary to complete the pasteurisation cycle is of approximately two hours, but as the system is equipped with two pasteurisers it is possible to produce every hour a volume of ice-cream mix equal to the capacity of one of the two pasteurisers; in fact as the first pasteuriser is filled and brought to temperature, the second is loaded, which will have already reached the pasteurisation temperature, initiating a continuous work cycle.