Water Filtration for Food Processing Applications

The quality of the water used for bakery and food processing has been of increasing interest over the last few years. Previously, when owners would inquire about using chillers for their bakery or snack business operation, the driving motivation was a chiller’s ability to provide a consistent temperature. (Often, they were looking to switch from using ice to cool their ingredients.) They were not as concerned about filtering out lead, pathogens or poor taste from the water they used in their ingredient mixes. A typical response was, “They like the taste of our products. Why do I need to change it?”Get more news about Best Price Water Filter Water Filter Element Production Equipment,you can vist our website!

But, when a large national pizza company wanted to make a change in their ingredient chilling process, their engineers had more stringent requirements. The company’s goals were to ensure that its products were safe and of consistently high quality. The chilled water used in their ingredient mixes had to be free of contaminants (bugs). To make sure this would happen, the company installed valves to shut off the water going to their mix lines if a UV sterilizer bulb went out in the purification unit on the makeup water line. This way, they knew the water going in the mixers was always going to be safe and of the highest quality.

The pizza company employs an inline filtration unit that uses a three-stage water purification system on the makeup water going to the ingredient water chiller. The process to filter the water for the pizza dough starts with particulate filters and carbon purifiers before flowing through the UV sterilizer to remove disease-causing bacteria, viruses and microorganisms. This is the same filtration process used for drinking water applications around the world.

The application is long proven: During World War II, the U.S. Army contacted one chilled water equipment manufacturer for a solution to produce filtered and cold water for the food services at the U.S. Army field camps. Particularly in hot locations such as the desert, food services wanted to have more control over the temperature of their dough mixes. During high ambient conditions, the yeast in a dough mix would activate too quickly, causing the dough to rise too early. Also, there was no way to be sure that the ingredient water would be safe.

Working closely with U.S. Army engineers, the chilled water equipment manufacturer designed a batch-type ingredient water chiller for government bakeries. Taking advantage of its storage method of cooling, the chilled water equipment manufacturer designed a water chiller that, at the push of a button, could supply batches of consistent 34°F (1°C) water into a dough mixer without danger of freezeup. The chiller included a water purifier so that bread for the troops was mixed with purified water.
How does the batch draw chiller work? The chillers are specially designed with a high transfer immersion coil evaporator and large holdover storage to supply ingredient water at 34°F (1°C) and to maintain temperature setting within ± 1.5°F (0.8°C). This important storage feature provides a large volume of chilled water for the dough and acts as a refrigeration “cushion.” This means the stored water volume helps prevent overload and short cycling that is common to chillers without storage.