Instant production

Some gum users now take gum in a pre-prepared form. Spray dried gum acacia has been used in pharmaceutical products for some time. The spray dried gum offers the pharmaceutical manufacturer a clean ready to use product. Instant forms of gum acacia have been offered by suppliers for some time. The instant products can be rapidly made into solution and used. Obviously the instant gum is more expensive. A manufacturer that uses gum as a minor ingredient may well find that the capital and labour cost of purifying raw gum is not cost effective. A company that uses gum acacia as a major ingredient might come to a different conclusion. Instantised gums pose different problems to the analytical chemist.. One approach that can be used is to have an optical rotation specification for the product. Even this approach is not entirely proof against a material that contains a blend of gums of different optical rotation. 

There are other ways to make granulated products. Instant products such as instant cacao (a mixture of cacao powder, sugar and milk) can be made by low shear granulation like the Hosokawa Flexomix technology, as shown in Figure 16.9. For example, an instant cacao produced this way dissolves easily and disperses the cacao (very hydrophobic) quickly without lump formation. 

Manufacturing techniques employed in producing instant products include spray-coating dry powders with fluid lecithin products, cospray drying powders with more hydrophihc lecithins such as the oil-free forms, or hydroxylated lecithin, and agglomeration of the powder with an aqueous dispersion of a hydrophihc lecithin. Some types of powders, for example, starches, gums, and chocolate drink mixes, require agglomeration with an aqueous dispersion of lecithin to achieve optimum wettabihty and dispersibility. 

Figure 55. Apparatus for measuring wettability and dispersibility of instant products ...

Easily Soluble ( Instant ) Products The manufacturing of easily soluble, instant granules is one of the oldest and most thoroughly researched applications of engineered products. The term instant is normally used in the food industry and related fields, such as pharmaceuticals and animal feeds, to describe characteristics of drink powders (including coffee, tea milk, milk replacers, soft drinks, vitamins, medicated powders, etc.), soups, sauces and the like. Instant agglomerates are also desirable for pigments and other chemicals that are ultimately dissolved in a diluent. 

All instant products must quickly dissolve in a specified solvent or, more generally, in liquids of any kind and temperature (particularly also at ambient or even cold conditions) without residue or sediment. Each industry has a more or less well defined procedure to determine the maximum allowable time. Typically, complete dissolution should be accomplished within a few seconds in warm liquid and approx. 30-60 s in cold liquid. Special drink powders will have to meet the shorter times, even in cold liquids, Such instant granules may contain certain substances that assist in the breakup of the granules during the dispersion phase (see Section 5.1.2). 

Easily Dispersible Products Easily dispersible products are very similar to instant products. The only difference is in the fact that the primary particles are not soluble. Typical examples are pigments, carbon black, silica fume, etc. 

As briefly discussed in Section 5.4, the term instant is normally used in the food industry, for drink powders, soups, sauces, and the like, as well as in related fields, for example for pharmaceuticals and animal feeds, and describes the easy solubility of these products. Instant agglomerates are also desirable for pigments and other finely divided chemicals which are ultimately applied with and in a diluent. Many of these materials are insoluble and, therefore, only require complete dispersion. All instant products must be able to quickly disperse and, if applicable, dissolve in a specific liquid at any temperature, particularly also at ambient or even cold conditions, without residue and sediment. 

Fig. 12.3 Schematic representations of potential changes in particle size and shape which may occur during the wetting of instant products" [12.2].

Fig. 12.4 Apparatus for measuring the wettability and dispersibility of instant products" [B.42]. (1) Instant product, (2) cuvette, (3) amplifier with lens, (4) thermostat, (5) magnetic stirrer, (6) beaker, (7) light source, (8) light conductor, (9) photodiode /// = Transmission, H = 40 mm.

Fig. 12.6 Principles that are most commonly used to manufacture instant products from powdered food materials [12.2],...

To fulfill the above requirements, manufacturers of milk replacers seek to obtain the following high wettability, high dispersability, low sedimentation tendencies (little residue or sediment after reconstitution), and stability of the fat-in-water emulsion. Referring back to Section 6.4.1, Tab. 6.4-3, the first three are characteristics of instant products. In addition, the stable fat-in-water emulsion is maintained with the help of emulsifiers. 

Instant products Growth aggl. Mixer, fluid bed... 

More commonly used and widely researched is microencapsulation. In this context, the prefix micro refers to the dimension of the encapsulated product, which is typically 1-2 mm in size or, increasingly, 10-100 pm range. If a slurry containing a solution, emulsion, or suspension of polymer is dispersed into small particles and dried in a spray dryer microencapsulated particles of the type described above are formed. Such a process yields a dry, free-flowing powder which, in most cases, satisfies the criteria defined for instant products. 

The term instant is normally used in the food industry for drink powders, including milk, coffee, tea, soups, sauces, and the like. All instant products must be able to disperse quickly and, if applicable, dissolve in a specific liquid at any temperature, particularly also at ambient or even cold conditions, without residue and sediment. 

Gontrolled, forced agglomeration provides conditions that are favorable for particle coalescence and/or size enlargement by growth. These methods yield instant products since most powders achieve that characteristic by mere agglomerate growth. 

Re-wet agglomeration of dry, fine food material (e.g., from spray drying) to obtain instant products is carried out in special tower structures or in mixer agglomerators. 

Although, theoretically and sometimes practically, instant products can be also manufactured in high-shear mixer agglomerators (Section 6.3.1), in the food industry spray drying and agglomeration (A2 in Tab. 6.4-4) are used as the original, still very common... 

Skim milk powder and whole milk powder are used either for the reconstitution of milk in countries that for climatic reasons have no dairy farming or as intermediate products for further processing into infant milk products, milk chocolate etc. The quality of these instant products depends on the durability, redissolution capacity (cold and warm), taste, microbiological characteristics, and preservation of essential constituents (proteins, vitamins) during production. 

Pregelatinized Extrusion Drum drying Soluble in cold water Cake and instant products... 

P. gives texture, consistency and water regulation to filled dessert, instant products, fhiit preparations, ice cream, chocolates, and baking goods. It is a low-energy sugar and fat replacement. 

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