Tag: Food & Beverage

Cocoa spread

Cocoa products are usually hard to measure being mostly solid. But as a sweetened hazelnut cocoa spread and as more ingredients are added to the mix, it becomes easier to measure viscosity directly with a viscometer.

Sweetened hazelnut cocoa spread is widely used across the world as a breakfast or snack time treat. Customers like it for its consistent taste and texture, and might be hard for industrials to keep it that way for every single item.

When industrialized, cocoa spread is made in tanks by batches, and goes through a process line.

A viscometer for the batch

To ease the process and to help prevent an imperfect batch, industrials can install a viscometer on their process. Either in the tank or in line, this viscometer will help keeping consistency, viscosity and temperature at a standard. It is a great batch control instrument, to make sure your final product is always the same.

A viscometer is able to help you save time by controlling the batch as well as saving raw materials, by controlling viscosity, you control the state of your batch.

Sofraser viscometers are the solution

Reliable and repeatable, Sofraser’s bestseller results in peak production and end-product quality by delivering 24/7 instantaneous measurement.

The MIVI, Sofraser’s well proven vibrating type viscometer is able to provide efficient analysis of viscosity, temperature, concentration and more.

Sofraser’s MIVI has a sanitary configuration that is designed to fit the food and beverage industry’s need for sanitary solutions.

This sanitary design allows no niches spaces and can be cleaned in place (CIP). There are therefore no need to uninstall it from the process, saving you time.

The MIVI sanitary is compatible with our high pressure and high sensitivity version. The sensor is also corrosion resistant (316L SS) and compatible with sanitary procedures, don’t hesitate to contact us to know more about the product.

Beer, to be good, is complex to make. Customers want to drink the same drink they bought previously as that they liked the taste of it. In order to get beer to always taste good and the same, one of the things producers take care is remove all the yeast at the end of the first fermentation. While removing all the yeast at the bottom of the tank is rather easy, the challenge is not to lose the beverage. From the technical point of view it’s consisting to detect the interface between yeast and beer flowing in the exhaust pipe.

And to be able to do that, getting a viscometer is a solution. For the detection of threshold transition of small amounts of yeast into the beer, after fermentation, a viscometer is the best solution to control with precision your process.

You can, in line, detect yeast in the beer during the transfer of tanks. The main objective of the sensor is to reduce waste and time in the process.

During the beer fermentation process, the amount of yeast produced varies and at the end of it, the yeast sediments at the bottom of the tanks. It is then pumped to be sent for recycling.
The whole problem is to determine with maximum precision the transition from yeast to beer.

For each type of beer, the brewery pumps a certain volume. As yeast production is never stable from one cuvee to another, significant losses in this beverage production are recorded. In addition, the centrifugation process is very time-consuming and does not allow the release of proteins that are partly responsible for the filtration.

Sofraser’s top of the art viscometer

A viscometer allows you to control the threshold transition from yeast to beer. Adding a viscometer to your process helps you produce better, consistent beer but also reduces your wastes and increases production capacity.

The MIVI, Sofraser’s bestseller available in both sanitary and hygienic EHEDG certified design, has low influence of flow rate variations (measurement at high shear rate in 2nd Newtonian stage), is easy to install and to use, rugged and has no drift.

The MIVI also doesn’t require any maintenance, install it and let it improve your process.

What is a yogurt?

Yoghurt is the result of milk fermentation by two lactic thermophilic bacteria. The main goal of these bacteria is to reduce milk pH in order to form a gel and provide acidulate taste and savour to the gel. Fermentation leads to milk solidification usually called “white mass”. It can be consumed in this firm state or after brewing providing a creamy or liquid consistency.

Culture is done in tanks and agitation is required to have good homogeneity of the mix milk/ferments. At this step, the process will differ for firm or stirred yoghurt productions. To obtain firm yoghurt, the white mass is immediately filled in pots and fermentation happens directly into the pots.

In yoghurt tasting, consistency and texture are of utmost importance, for which viscosity is the most relevant correlated parameter. In fact, consistency, texture and concentration indicate a resistance to motion and flow.

The production cycle of a yogurt

During yoghurt production cycle, some recipes are instable and/or fragile due to their complexity. Moreover, the time is crucial: it is important to minimize the time between preparation phase and packaging phase, because this is when whey pockets are created.

At the end of fermentation, the tank contains yoghurt but may also contain pockets of whey. These pockets of whey should not enter in the stirring/mixing step and absolutely not in the pot.

Possible consequences of excessive whey in final yoghurt packaging are diluted yoghurts or whey instead of yoghurts which can lead to unsatisfied customers. The inline viscometer, correlated to texture and concentration values, helps to remove whey from normal process of yoghurt manufacturing.

Whey has a lower viscosity than yoghurt and will be detected by the MIVI and automatically evacuated from the normal processing line. Beside of this use, the MIVI sensor can also be used as the most sensitive consistency or dry extract meter on the market. It provides a vibrating measurement detecting any variation in the state of the material. By default, the MIVI is calibrated in viscosity units.

The MIVI is repeatable and reliable, designed for hygienic environment thanks to its design certified by EHEDG, is not influenced by flow rate variations thanks to its measurement at high shear rate in 2nd Newtonian stage. As the MIVI is easy to install and to use, robust and has no drift, it doesn’t require any maintenance.

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Fresh cheese are produced from curdled and drained milk, with little processing. The details of the recipes and the know-how of each producer; as well as the dry matter and fat content and possible aromatic ingredients make the difference between the many brands.

The manufacture of dairy products requires strict control of their dry matter content. To save material, the precision of this measurement avoids the overdose of dry matter. It allow the regularity of the functioning of the automatic packaging machines; the consistency of the texture of the finished product and the consistency of the commercial quality for the satisfaction of the consumers

For the French leaders in the dairy industry; excellence is achieved by perfectly controlling the quality of fresh cheese in real time after the homogenization of the curd.

Since there is a known relationship between dry matter and viscosity for many products, Sofraser proposes the installation of a MIVI inline viscometer directly on the vat ensuring a precise optimization of the dry matter concentration in fresh cheese production.

Thanks to its robustness, reliability, and sensitivity to variations in the texture and consistency of dairy products, the sensor continuously monitors product specifications in real time, thus allowing significant savings in raw materials, but also the elimination of losses due to poor production and finally a drastic reduction in customer complaints.

See also our case study on a dairy industry.

You want to know more about our Hygienic MIVI? Download its detailed sheet on our MIVI page.

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Spray drying after concentration is commonly used for the manufacturing of powdered milk. Atomization is a crucial step of the process and viscosity measurement provides valuable information relating subsequent powdered formula characteristics. Bad spray drying parameters impact production efficiency and have various consequences such as unstable finished product quality, out of specification moisture rate, process issues and energy wastes.

Powdered milk viscosity measurement in real-time

With a MIVI sensor installed before atomization, viscosity measurement provides continuous and real-time control of a quality characteristic.

Some key product characteristics of this viscometer configuration are:

• 3A sanitary mounting design
• Clean-in-place (CIP)
• High pressure capabilities
• Ease of installation

Inline viscosity monitoring of powdered milk improves manufacturing by optimizing the homogeneity of dehydrated matter, creating consistent reconstituted products, increasing yields and reducing losses.

Only taking into account energy savings linked to spraying optimization, the installation of one MIVI sensor on a milk spray drying manufacturing line improved savings by 1%, reaching a ROI in less than 6 months.

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Due to multiple raw ingredients suppliers, variations and inconsistencies must be corrected. Cooking, mixing, speed, and duration must be highly exact in order to achieve compatible viscosity and the final, desired texture. For this case, we will use processed cheese as an example.

Cooking application; viscosity measurement for melted cheese

When melting salts are added to other ingredients, the melted cheese consistency changes and it can be too thick or too thin. When either occurs, manufacturing process face frequent downtime due to unpredictable product variations. Ultimately, final product quality is not met.

Sofraser Inline viscosimeter solutions for cheese process industries

A MIVI process viscometer paired with its associated processor easily monitors melted cheese during the manufacturing and maturation processes by determining its physical characteristics and correlating them directly to viscosity. One of the MIVI viscometer significant characteristics is the 3A design sanitary mounting which eliminates bacteria proliferation. The viscometer is cleaned in place so there is no need to uninstall it from the process.

In order to achieve consistent end-product quality and to maintain zero customer claims regarding product consistency, the installation of a MIVI process viscometer achieves all aspects of production efficiency by determining ideal operation characteristics. Since the MIVI corrects ingredient variations and increases savings, ROI is generally realized within six months of the installation.

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