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Case Study: Finding the Solution for a Blocked Separator

GEA Westfalia Cream Separator
There is a wide range of problems/challenges you can face with a separator. One of our most recent customers got to feel that himself. Luckily he is not a person who is ashamed of making mistakes and asked us straightforward if we would know the solution to the challenge he was struggling with.

 

Recently we have visited a customer in Ukraine. Originally we met him to talk about equipment and processes to produce Gouda cheese. However, our business partner asked us to follow him into his operating rooms to show us a problem he is facing since he has bought a new separator (which they did not buy from us by the way). What he showed us, you can see in the pictures below. Basically, the plates of his separator are suffering from sediments and after emptying the separator they find residue which has more than a strange color an on top of that is much thicker than usual.

 

After a short investigation it was clear that there have been made two mistakes:

 

First of all the Separator was deficient. Obviously, the machine was missing 5 plates. Second, the dairy processed its milk on a „cold“ separator which means they missed to pre-heat it e.g. with the help of hot water. What happens when you make such mistakes, you can see on the pictures above: Cream sediments block your separator, the plates suffer and an abnormal residue empties your separator.

 

Luckily our business partner introduced the challenge he was facing to us. Imagine: his technologist was saying that they would need an additional clarifying separator to solve this issue, what obviously was wrong.
We on the other side recommended to add the missing plates and to pre-wash the machine with hot water in order to pre-heat it. As an interim solution, until the separator plates are delivered, we suggested that they should try to tighten the plates. This bridged (more or less) the missing plates.

 

In the end, fixing this issue according to our recommendations saved the dairy money for a separator, their financial planning just did not allow.
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Visiting A Major German Ice Manufacturer

Ice Cream Filling Line Big Drum

 

On the 25.02.2016 Vitali and I have arranged a meeting with a major ice cream manufacturer in Germany. As this manufacturer had several machines and whole lines for sale he invited us to his production site to inspect the machinery. On top of that, there was an unfortunate incident while our visit.

The Journey

 

The named manufacturer has invited us to his production site in the north of Germany at 9 o’ clock. For us this meant to depart early at 5:30 o’clock in the morning because from our office in Gifhorn (Germany) we would have to drive at least three hours. Considering that the rush hour could affect us coming through unhindered, we thought it would be a good idea to calculate an extra half an hour into our travel time.
Fortunately, there have not been any traffic jams or other disruptions along our way, so we authorized ourselves to drink a coffee along with some pastries near the manufactury where we headed.

 

Inspecting The Machines 

 

Arrived at the manufacture, we met with the Used Machinery Manager of the company and he led us through the whole site where we inspected all the machinery which are for sale. What is important for me to mention, is that our “guide” was a very pleasant person. We had some quite interesting and humorous conversations. Best regards to our guide at this point :-).
We got to see many different machines and plants for the ice cream production and most of them will be soon offered on our Website. Here are some examples of what we got to see:

 

  • Diverse continuous Tetra Pak Freezers
  • Spiral freezers for different products
  • A chocolate bar ice cutting line with integrated spiral freezer
  • Sandwich ice production line
  • Compressors
and many more.
Of most of the machines and production lines, we have made detailed footage which we will publish on our Youtube Channel and in our Product Catalogue in form of invitations to tenders. If you want a sneak peek of what we will have to offer in near future concerning ice cream machinery, watch the following video:

 

Unfortunate Incident

 

Unfortunately while our visit, we experienced a bad incident. The following happened:
While we were walking to the next machine we wanted to have a look at, we passed through a hall full of milk storage tanks. In this hall, however, there have already been mechanics who have started to dismantle some of the tanks. Everyone who has been in such a hall knows the number of pipings which have to be disconnected from the tanks.
Now as we passed by one of the tanks which have been dismantled, a mechanic was about to disconnect a stainless steel pipe, somehow lost hold of it so that it then fell and unfortunately hit Vitali’s head and my shoulder. Luckily I duck away otherwise I probably would have been hit on the head too.
Miraculously Vitali was not injured seriously and after a short moment of disorientation, he could go on walking. So to speak we were fortunate in an unfortunate moment.

 

Bottom Line

 

Despite the (little) accident that happened in the tank hall, we had a really nice visit with many and especially valuable impressions. We are now processing all the information and footage we have gathered so that in the next few you can expect our updated website-offer including ice cream machinery.

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The M&E Trading Team

 

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MVR VS. TVR Evaporators: Advantages And Disadvantages

Unipektin evaporator

 

Mechanical vapor recompression (MVR) and thermal vapor recompression (TVR) are the two prevailing evaporation methods in the dairy industry. It is undisputed that both have their benefits, but dairies should make a thorough evaluation which of the two evaporation types suits best to their business operation.

 

Thermal Vapour Recompression Explained

 

When evaporation is executed by thermal vapor recompression, a blower, compressor or jet ejector recompresses live steam respectively motive steam. By this means the pressure of the live steam coming from a boiling chamber is increased. The increase in pressure subsequently leads to a higher temperature of the vapor.

 

The compressors used in TVR plants, work according to the steam jet pump principle which means a simple and effective design with high operational reliability.

 

Parts of the steam, the so-called motive steam, is required for operating the compressor. This exact steam is recycled by being transferred as excess vapor to the next effect of the evaporator plant.

 

Mechanical Vapour Recompression

 

MVR Evaporators are comparatively low on energy consumption. There are two reasons for this: is that the compressors of such plants are electricity driven and the vapor leaving the evaporator can be fully recycled. The fact that Evaporators with MVR use electricity to drive the impeller to compress the vapors leads to higher pressure and hence to higher temperatures as well.

 

The allure in MVR lies in the fact that the energy of the vapor is efficiently used to maintain the evaporators heat balance. This decreases the need for additional steam for heating and ensures stable processing conditions.

 

MVR And TVR Compared

 

Evaporators with MVR

                                           

+ energy efficient
+ do not need (that) much space
+ reduced CO2 footprint
+ low long-term costs

 

– very high investment costs
– efficiency depends on production volume

 

Evaporators with TVR

 

+ implementation of flavor recovery possible
+ simple and effective design
+ low wear and tear
+ operational reliability
+ less/low investment costs

 

– high energy consumption
– high long-term costs
– negative CO2 footprint
– intensive in space requirements

 

Conclusion

 

As a conclusion, we can tell that the decision whether to utilize an evaporator with MVR or a plant with TVR depends on several factors like the consideration of steam production cost or the size of the company and its production volume. Below are some factors to consider prior to deciding which kind of evaporator would be suitable for your company.
  • Upfront capital cost
  • Capacity and operating data like annual operating hours
  • Product properties like viscosity
  • Utility requirements like electricity or machine parts exposed to wear and tear
  • Site conditions like space requirements
  • Personnel cost for servicing and operating the plant
  • The legal framework of your production location

 

Generally, MVR evaporators should be used in certain mid-size and all large companies where energy efficiency is a priority, while thermo-compression units tend to limit their use to small units, where energy consumption is less of an issue.

 

Case Study

 

If you are interested in an interesting case study concerning an evaluation of the pros and cons of MVR to TVR .evaporators, I strongly recommend this article.

 

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Machinery Basics: Evaporator Plants

Milk and Whey Evaporator Plant

 

General Information

 

An evaporator is a machine used to transform the fluid type of a synthetic into its vaporous structure. The fluid is vanished, or vaporized, into a gas.

 

Water can be expelled from arrangements in routes other than vanishing, including layer procedures, fluid extractions, crystallization, and precipitation. Evaporation can be recognized from some other drying techniques in that the last result of evaporating is a concentrated fluid, not a solid object. It is likewise moderately easy to utilize and comprehend since it has been broadly utilized on a huge scale, and numerous strategies are for the most part surely understood.

 

So as to think an item by water evaporation, a single stage is utilized which takes into consideration the simple transport of the dissolvable (water) as opposed to the solute. Water vapor is utilized as the assistant stage while concentrating non-unpredictable parts, for example, proteins and sugars. Heat is added to the arrangement, and part of the dissolvable is changed over into vapor. Heat is the primary device in evaporation, and the procedure happens all the more promptly at high temperature and low weights.

 

How an Evaporator works

 

The liquid to be evaporated for example milk is bolstered into the evaporator and goes over a heated source. The connected heat changes over the milk in the arrangement into vapor. The vapor is expelled from whatever remains of the milk and is dense while the now-thought milk is either sustained into a second evaporator or is uprooted.

 

The evaporator, as a machine, by and large, comprises of four segments. The warming area contains the warming medium, which can change. Steam is encouraged into this segment. The most widely recognized medium comprises of parallel tubes.

 

The concentrating and isolating area expels the vapor being delivered from the arrangement. The condenser gathers the isolated vapor, then the vacuum or pump gives weight to expand the course.

 

The fluid material which is prepared to be amassed will bolster into the base of the warming tubes and stream upwards to the highest point of the tubes by the force of the evaporation pump.

 

Meanwhile, the vapor experiences the outer surface of the warming tubes. As a result, the fluid is warmed because of the heat trade with the vapor. Due to the hoisted weight by the power of the pump the height, it is superheated. When it goes into the separator vessel, the weight is all of a sudden diminished and the vapor isolates from the concentrated fluid.

 

Because of the intense power of the pump, the fluid streams with high speed. So it is suitable to handle fluid in high thickness or fluid with crystal strength.
Constrained evaporation evaporators can deal with fluids with force or salts encouraging amid the focus step.

 

Outline of the Plant

 

Normally it consists of warming chambers, separators, condenser, steam plane pump, heat protecting tube, pumps, vacuum system, vapor distributor, operation platform, electric cabinet, valves, pipelines, etc.

 

Bottom Line

 

Evaporators have always been helpful in the bakery and the dairy industry. It has been used for many years for evaporating liquids and making thick creams, cheese or milk solids. They have been renowned in the industry and have been dominating the industry so far.

 

Look at the pros and cons of every machine that you ought to purchase and think about if you can handle the cons.

 

Looking for Used Evaporator Plants?

 

Why don’t you have a look at the Evaporators we offer on our website? We have got Evaporators with mechanical vapour recompression (MVR) and thermal vapour recompression (TVR):

 

 

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Processing Tip: What You Can Do With A Stephan Universal Machine

STEPHAN has over 57 years of experience in the food business. STEPHAN machines are described by uncommon flexibility. They can cut, blend, scatter, mix and emulsify warmth and cool. They are vigorous, enduring and simple to clean. They have the office for numerous preparing ventures to be performed on one machine.STEPHAN machines can be utilized for the creation of comfort foods, dairy applications, and candy store items and, in addition, meat and frankfurters.

 

One Single Machine, Multiple Possibilities

 

Stephan innovation offers the accompanying key advantages:

 

•    Insignificant vitality, along these lines CO2 decrease
•    Nature of crude materials is secured by quick, coordinate warming
•    Smell, shading, and structure of the items is improved
•    General nature of food created is expanded
•    Consistent lines for the dairy and accommodation foods businesses

 

STEPHAN offers a scope of consistent lines for the dairy and accommodation food businesses, including:

 

  • STEPHAN UHT Machine for the generation of handled cheddar
  • STEPHAN Continuous Cooker for the generation of a wide range of prepared cheddar, child sustenance, sauces, salsas, ketchup, soups, and puréed nourishment
  • STEPHAN Conti-Lines for the generation of mayonnaise, serving of mixed greens cream, ketchup, sauces, cream soups, salsas, infant sustenance, doctor’s facility nourishment, and vegetable purée
  • STEPHAN Emulsifying Module for the generation of mayonnaise, serving of mixed greens creams, dressings, and emulsified sauces

 

STEPHAN Universal Machines (UM) can be used for the making of handled cheddar, mayonnaise, ketchup, horseradish, plunges, child sustenance, sauces, dressings, chocolate, fillings, marzipan, surimi, crisp cheddar arrangements and emulsions.

 

Following items can also be prepared with universal machines easily:

 

•    Inside chocolates
•    Almond paste
•    Chocolate
•    Emulsions
•    Ganache
•    Topping
•    Praline
•    Creams
•    Pastes of all kinds

 

Conventional attributes of Stephan Universal Machines include widespread application, sturdiness, short cluster times and the capacity to handle a few procedures with one machine. Advancement of the UM set extraordinary has started on the ease of use and additionally meeting current cleanliness guidelines easily. Changes are additionally unmistakable, all things considered, particularly in the structure and design of the machine.

 

55 years of exploration, advancement, and sending of dynamic innovation has brought about top-class machines with a worldwide notoriety all through the food handling industry. In the global nourishment industry, the name Stephan remains for premium Universal Machines with dish sizes from 5 to 200 liters.

 

For cutting, blending or emulsifying

 

Stephan UMs are utilized if a single machine is required to execute dependably and rapidly an extensive variety of handling capacities, for example, cutting, fine cutting, blending, mixing, manipulating, making purees and emulsifying and working under vacuum.

 

It is perfect for use in all fields of food handling, e.g. for the generation of bread and pastry shop items, meat and frankfurters, sweet shop and dairy items.
The item contact parts of dish and cover are made of 1.4301 or comparable (V2A).
The surface is not impacted. The backing is made of stainless steel, as well. The working devices are made of stainless steel and are comprising of a blade shaft and two blades and also a blending astound with PFDV scrubber for manual taking care of. A sight glass and a light are introduced on the spread. The machine is furnished with a tilting gadget for simple item release.

 

The fundamental engine – outfitted with recurrence converter – is controlled by a delicate touch board. The readout shows up in 2 lines in a lit up LCD show. The worked keys are lit up also. A clock is incorporated.

 

The Stephan UMs are is generally accessible with the dish with a twofold coat for circuitous cooling or warming of the dish substance. For this situation, there is existing a temperature sign and the likelihood to utilize a temperature set point for shutoff by delicate touch console.

 

The machines uncompromising top-class execution surpasses the most astounding requests of clients who truly realize what the business sector brings to the table.
STEPHAN Universal Machines are described by extraordinary flexibility. They are generally useful, powerful and dependable.

 

All preparing steps are performed by demonstrated STEPHAN standard: Each procedure is accomplished in one machine (in with no reservations one), the force of the principal engine is exchanged straightforwardly to the blades – without rigging! The pivoting blades, reverse-acting scrubber arm together with the connection of the unique dish geometry accomplish ideal preparing of the item in a briefest of time. The release of the item is made by physically tilting the dish through 90° (excl-UMSK 5 by physically evacuating the dish).

 

STEPHAN machines offer the perfect answer for applications including soups, pasta sauces, rice, vegetables, dressings, child sustenance, a wide range of both instant suppers and prepared cheddar – and last not minimum meat/hotdogs.

 

For higher limits, an extensive variety of machines is accessible like STEPHAN Vacutherm System, STEPHAN Combitherm and STEPHAN Cook-It. The mix of the cluster units STEPHAN Vacutherm and STEPHAN Cooking Mixer and cushion tanks including encompassing hardware – like metering frameworks – gives the required adaptability.

 

STEPHAN has likewise built up another era of nonstop preparing plants for handled cheddar items – the STEPHAN UHT System. This application depends on the wide involvement in the handled cheddar preparation. It takes care of the demand for the high caliber of definite items with monetary projects.

 

STEPHAN supplies answers for items, similar to meat/skin emulsions, liver paté, pet sustenance, and so on. By the method for the STEPHAN Microcut® homogenous fine cutting and emulsifying of meat can be accomplished and also shaping emulsions and scattering solids in fluids with an extensive variety of machine designs.

 

What we have to Offer

 

Are you looking for a universal machine like one from Stephan? I am sure we can help you with your demand. Either submit an inquiry or take a look at what we have submitted to our Website:

 

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2 Great Tips To Produce More Energy Efficient

Save energy
Do you regularly audit on the energy efficiency of your production facilities? If your answer this question with “NO!” then I recommend you the following two tips as an initial impetus to improve your energy efficiency.

 

Auditing is an essential activity to improve processes and operations within a company. Usually there are predefined dates on which an audit is made for a specific process, department and so forth.

 

 

First Tip: Optimize Your Homogenizer

 

Optimizing respectively adjusting a homogenizer should always be beared in mind, especially when you change from one product to another. While for one product your homogenizer has to work with the highest pressure it can generate, for another product the pressure can be reduced by 1/3 without losing product quality.

 

In Tetra Pak’s case study an adjustment (by using a special homogenizing device) saved the concerning company 260.000 kWh per year. Now take the costs for 1 kWh at your location and do the math. I guess the the figures speak for themselves.

 

Second Tip: Optimize Your CIP Process

 

The second tip concerns the effeciency of CIP processes. Of course each CIP takes only a few hours to execute and therefore the energy consumption is considerably lower than of the actual daily production. However regarding the usual annual energy costs for CIP one quickly recognizes that this process demands a considerable amount of money as well.

 

 

Great Side Effects

 

There are several great side effects of optimizing your energy balance:
  • your company has a positive impact on the environment which can be used for public relations
  • you can reduce wear and tear of your machinery
  • as a result of less wear and tear you achieve longer service intervals

 

Why don’t you take a look at our Offer?

 

 

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The Basics and Benefits of Nanofiltration

Reverse Osmosis Plant LTH

 

Dear reader,
dear business partner,

 

have you ever considered to integrate nanofiltration (NF) in your milk, whey or juice production process, but until today you are not sure if there are real benefits to it? Then let me visualize them to you in this short article about the basics and benefits of this processing type.

 

Let’s start with the Basics

 

So what is NF all about?
With the help of NF it is possible to concentrate certain substances/contents of fluids. NF is a pressure driven membrane process which is meanwhile a widely used and renowned processing type within the foodstuff and beverage industry. Especially the dairy industry discovered nanofiltration for itself in order to recycle by-products like whey for example.

 

The actual functional principle is as follows. On one side of the membrane (a semi permeable wall) pressure is built up. This leads to the fact that the fluid, e.g. whey, is pressed against the wall so that only simply charged ions diffuse through the membrane. The substance passed the membrane is called permeat. The other substances/contents of the fluid (multiply charged ions) which are held back because the membrane does not let them pass is called retentat and equals the concentrate. The pores of the membrane are so small that it holds back particles with a diameter of 1 nano meter (nm) and smaller.

 

Fields of Application

 

There are various field of application for NF. Here is a short list of examples:
  • pretreatment of whey for the production of whey powder
  • production of quark-like fresh cheese
  • production of lactose solutions
  • production of demineralised whey products
  • extraction of amino acids and lactic acids from silage juice
This list does not claim to be complete, but it shows that NF can be applied to produce a wide range of products.

 

The Benefits

 

Especially mid-size and big companies do benefit from the use of NF because it helps optimizing the profit situation.

 

It is especially a very good alternative to concentration through evaporation because the acquisition costs are conciderably lower for a NF plant. Above that evaporation is a much more energy intensive process and last but not least a NF plant is much more easier to integrate into an existing business because of its advantageous size.

 

Another great advantage lies in the use of ultrafiltration (UF) permeate. With the help of NF you can concentrate and partly demineralise your permeate in one single process step. So if you have UF permeate which remains unused you should definitely think about the integration of NF in your process in order to generate extra revenue with the sales of processed UF permeate.

 

When you are already producing or think about producing whey powder, NF is a solution which you should use to improve your product. It is not a secret that whey powder which is won out of pre-concentrated respectively pre-treated whey is more valuable and of higher demand than a product which did not run through NF.

 

Finally, NF is a purely physical separation process. That means a chemical/thermal modification of the components to be separated is unnecessary.

 

Bottom Line

 

As you can see, NF is a process with manifold benefits. Especially the aspect that it has high potential to improve the profit situation is a highly considerable argument. Important to acknowledge is that NF is a good alternative to evaporation in terms of cost-effectiveness and product quality.

 

Have a Look at our Offer

 

We offer nanofiltration equipment ourselves:

Nanofiltration Plant – Capacity 20.000 l/h

Thank you for processing this article! 🙂
See you soon!

 

Yours Truly,
The M&E Trading Team
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Visiting an Austrian Dairy

Dear Reader,
dear Business Partner,
Last week (Wednesday to Thursday) we traveled to a major austrian dairy.
The reason for this trip was a customer who inquired for a UHT plant that he plans to use for a considerable dairy project in Asia. So we showed our customer two UHT plants in an outstanding condition.
We showed them a
  • GEA Finnah T 6500/130
and a
  • Tetra Pak Steritube 13
On the picture you can see Vitali together with our customer and the plant manager, inspecting the homogenizer machine which belongs to the GEA Finnah UHT plant.
According to our customer both plants made a very good impression and are definitely recommendable. You can get yourself an impression by watching videos of those plants on our YouTube Channel.
After inspecting the UHT plants we learned that our customer is also looking for storage tanks. Coincidentally at the same site, there were tanks available which were of interest to our customer concerning their technical specifications. Hence we took a look at them too.
Besides establishing business relations it is always interesting to get to know new people and learn something about their story. The people/business partners you meet are the key factor that make every trip unique and interesting.
Thank you for processing this article! 🙂
See you soon!
Yours Truly,
The M&E Trading Team