FOOD PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY
Providing the ultimate efficiency
solutions for food production
As the global effort to constantly produce food in more efficient and safer methods continues at pace, BCH rises to meet these challenges by constantly improving their equipment capabilities. BCH has multiple systems installed across the African continent delivering these benefits. COOKING The BCH range of cooking processes allow the user to cook products in atmospheric, vacuum or pressure conditions, all of which can be combined into one system to gain maximum flexibility, if required. The BCH FlexiChef recipe management system can deliver cooking sequences where the heating jacket can automatically switch between surface temperatures on each individual stage, which not only saves energy, but it also allows the user to process more complex recipes in the fastest times. BCH’s clients rely heavily on traceability and that’s where their reporting system assists with recording all times, weights and temperatures by stage as well as showing trends throughout the process. Atmospheric cooking often benefits from steam injection cooking when there is a requirement for rapid heating and/or a need to avoid the risk of damage from a steam jacket. The application of steam directly gives the best heat transfer co-efficient, whereby all the energy is consumed by the product. Vacuum cooking allows the product to be cooked at lower pressure/temperatures and is often used for the preparation of jams, preserves, chutneys, candies and caramels. It is also extensively used when the process requires a reduction cook to a specific solids percentage or weight, such as when
“The combination of BCH cooking and vacuum cooling into one complete system means you can guarantee foods are cooked and cooled rapidly with repeatability and food safety while benefitting from a smaller footprint with reduced labour and energy costs” concentrated stocks are being manufactured. The pressure-cooking process is particularly designed for products such as pie fillings, ragus, stews, curries and ‘long-cook’ vegetable processes. Typically, a four-hour cook can be completed in 75min creating huge savings in time, cost, labour and energy. The adaptability and cooking speed of BCH’s latest range of steam jacketed pressure cookers coupled with their ability to mix and cook simultaneously, enables customers to produce a high-quality finished food product in exceptionally fast times. With methods such as steam jacketed open kettles or steam injection, large amounts of additional water are added to the product and then evaporated off again, which can be costly when energy and water usage are a significant consideration. Pressure cooking retains moisture and locks in the flavour and nutrients, which can sometimes be lost during atmospheric or steam injection cooking. It also guarantees that the entire contents of the kettle have been cooked evenly at the same temperature for the time specified in the recipe. This
pressure method also improves processing times with vegetarian options, such as pulses, beans and chickpeas. BCH systems offer a unique horizontal style agitation that gives exceptional particulate distribution and mixing during the cooking process, keeping the particulates in suspension before and during transfer to the next process. COOLING BCH can offer several types of cooling such as scraped surface units and pouch cooling tumble chillers. However, the addition of a BCH vacuum cooling system ensures a complete high-performance system, providing the fastest and most effective means of heat removal from a batch process. Their vacuum cooling solutions can typically cool products from 90°C down to 5°C within 45min without the need for expensive refrigeration used on scrape surface, pouch and the traditional blast chilling rooms. A vacuum cooling system operates at around 30% of the refrigeration costs and it can be supplied with a seal water recovery system, thus reducing operating costs further. The speed of cooling in a sealed environment offers excellent food safety attributes and swift passage through the temperature danger zone. The combination of BCH cooking and vacuum cooling into one complete system means you can guarantee foods are cooked and cooled rapidly with repeatability and food safety while benefitting from a smaller footprint with reduced labour and energy costs. •
BCH - http://www.bchltd.com
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Food Manufacturing Africa | 2021 Quarter 3
