Automation of the caramel production line - Installation and adjustment of automation equipment - exchange rate

Introduction

In modern caramel production, mass types of lollipop caramel and caramel with liquid fillings (fruit-berry, milk, lipstick) are produced on mechanized flow lines. The retail range of caramels is made on lines requiring partial use of manual operations.

Mechanized production of caramel is characterized by a high intensity of processes. When forming caramel, productivity reaches 1800... 2200 products per minute, and modern wrapping machines have a performance of up to 1000... 1200 items per minute. Such manufacturing conditions place high demands on the accuracy of the geometrical dimensions, shape and strength characteristics of the articles.

Caramel mass is obtained by boiling of aqueous solution of sucrose and anticrystalliser till residual moisture content is 2.. 4%. The anticrystallizer used is starch molasses, which can be partially replaced with invert syrup.

The process of processing caramel mass and making articles from it is due to the physical state and mechanical characteristics of the mass, which primarily depend on temperature. Caramel mass at temperature above 100 ° C is a viscous liquid. The viscosity of the mass during cooling increases tenfold, and at a temperature of 65.. .75 ° C it goes into a plastic state, that is, it acquires the ability to take any form under pressure and maintain it. With further cooling below 35... 40 ° C, the mass goes into a vitreous amorphous state. It becomes firm and fragile.

The peculiarities of the technological process of caramel production are due to the fact that caramel mass is a very unstable system: sugar (sucrose) tends to assume its characteristic crystalline state. In addition, when the recipe mixture is heated, a chemical change in sucrose occurs. Products of this change are highly hygroscopic, degrade the appearance of products and reduce the shelf life of caramel. Therefore, at all stages of the process, it is required to create conditions that ensure high resistance of the caramel mass. In particular, to reduce temperature and duration of moisture removal from the recipe mixture, it is boiled under vacuum. Taste additives containing acid are added after preliminary cooling of caramel mass. A necessary condition in the production of caramel is the cooling of the boiled caramel mass as soon as possible, since the rate of crystallization of sucrose depends on the rate of cooling and drops rapidly with a decrease in temperature due to a sharp increase in the viscosity of the mass.

The surface of the finished caramel must be protected from the influence of ambient air. Unprotected caramel, absorbing moisture from the air, quickly moistens, sticks together and loses its commercial appearance. The most common method of protection is the wrapping of caramel into a liquid-tight label.

Process Diagram Description

The initial stages of the technological process for the production of caramel with liquid fillings are carried out using equipment complexes for the preparation of caramel syrup and filling. These complexes include containers for storage and devices for dosing recipe components, mixers and digesters.

The main equipment complex of the line is designed for preparation of caramel mass, forming and cooling of caramel. It contains dispensers of caramel syrup, flavor additives and dyes, vacuum apparatus, cooling and pulling machines, tempering machine and filling dispenser, caramel-wrapping, tow-pulling and forming machines, as well as a narrow cooling conveyor and cooling unit.

The final operations of caramel production are performed by a complex of equipment consisting of wrapping, packing and packaging machines, as well as a system of conveyors connecting them.

The line includes a syrup-cooking unit SHSA, designed to produce caramel syrup. It consists of a block of recipe collections, two syrup-cooking units and control boards. The recipe collection unit includes collections 2 for molasses, invert syrup and water, as well as two plunger pumps 1.

Syrup cooking unit includes collector 3 with sugar dispenser, mixer 4, plunger pump 5, coil cooking column 6 equipped with expander 7, steam separator 5, fan 11, collector of finished syrup 9 with mesh filter and gear pump 10.

The principle of operation of the SHSA syrup plant is based on the dissolution of sugar in molasses under pressure with the addition of water, which provides the shortest production cycle and reduces the duration of temperature exposure to sucrose. This allows to produce caramel syrup of higher quality and increase caramel resistance.

The SHSA unit operates as follows. From recipe collections 2 dosing pumps 1 are fed liquid components: molasses (or invert syrup) and water into intake funnel of mixer-solvent 4. Sugar sand is fed into the same funnel by means of dosing from bin 3.

The temperature of molasses and water supplied to the mixer is 65.. .70 ° C (the temperature of the invert syrup should not exceed 40.. .50 ° C). In a 4 mixer, the recipe mixture is treated for 3.0... 3.5 minutes and heated to 65... 70 "C. This mixture has a humidity of 17... 18% and is porridge with not completely dissolved sugar crystals.

By plunger pump 5 the mush-like mixture is fed into the coil of the cooking column 6. At the outlet of the column, the coil is connected to an expander 7, inside of which there is a disk with a hole with a diameter of 10... 15 mm. The disk resists the flow of the moving recipe mixture, thereby providing an overpressure in the coil of 0.17.. 0.20 MPa. Due to this pressure, the mixture is heated to a higher temperature than at atmospheric pressure without increasing the concentration of the solution. With excessive pressure of heating steam in the cooking column in the range of 0.45.. .0.55 MPa, the temperature of the syrup at the outlet of the coil reaches 120... 125 "C. As a result of the increase in temperature, sugar crystals dissolve more rapidly in slightly less water than is commonly used in other boiling methods.

The secondary steam formed in the syrup is removed in the steam separator 5 and, together with the air, the fan 11 is discharged to the outside.

The finished syrup is collected in the lower conical part of the steam separator 5 and withdrawn to the syrup collector 9. The collector is equipped with a filter with 1 mm diameter cells. As required, ready caramel syrup is pumped to places of consumption by gear pump 10.

The line includes a unit for the preparation of liquid fillings. It consists of a unit of recipe receptacles with dosing devices, two filling vacuum devices, a filling receptacle and control boards. The recipe collection unit 14 includes sugar syrup, molasses, fruit-berry pulp, dairy products, etc., as well as dosing devices for these components.

Filling vacuum devices 13 have a steam jacket, a mechanical stirrer and a discharge union with a gate. Working volume of apparatus is connected through pipeline on upper cover to wet-air vacuum pump 12 equipped with mixing condenser.

The filling receptacle 15 has a water jacket, a mechanical stirrer and a discharge union connected via a pipe to the gear pump 10.

During plant operation initial components are dosed and loaded into filling vacuum apparatus in accordance with recipe. After sealing of cooking volume vacuum pump is switched on and heating steam is supplied. When the filling is boiled, the excess pressure of heating steam is maintained within the range of 0.4.. 0.6 MPa, and the residual pressure (vacuum) in the cooking volume is 65... 75 kPa. The recipe mixture is boiled over a period of 30... 45 minutes to humidity 16... 19 %.

The finished filling flows through the guide chutes into the receptacle 15, is cooled to 80 ° C to 85 ° C and pumped by the pump 10 to the tempering machine 29. Acid and aromatic essence, which are mixed with the filling, are also supplied to the metering devices 27. The finished filling is pumped by pump 26 to filler 28.

The presence of a pair of digesters in the installation allows you to organize uninterrupted preparation of the filling: while the filling is boiled in one apparatus, auxiliary operations are carried out in another, and vice versa.

Caramel syrup is boiled to produce caramel mass in a continuous vacuum coil apparatus. It consists of a heating part - a coil cooking column 19, a evaporation part - a vacuum chamber 21 with an unloading mechanism 22 and a trap separator 20 connected through a mixing condenser to a wet-air pump 18.

During the operation of the vacuum apparatus, caramel syrup from a service syrup tank 16 a plunger dosing pump 17 is continuously pumped into the coil of the column 19 under excessive pressure 0.08... 0.15 MPa. Simultaneously, heating steam is supplied to the column housing at a pressure of 0.4... 0.6 MPa. Passing through the coil, the syrup is heated, boils and, mixing with the steam released from it, enters the vacuum chamber 21.

The residual pressure (vacuum) in the vacuum chamber is maintained within 85... 95 kPa, so the process of boiling out of the mass continues due to the intense self-evaporation of moisture in the rarefied space. The secondary vapor emitted from the syrup as it is boiled and the air passes through the trap separator 20 in which the caramel particles are retained. The secondary steam is then cooled, condensed and, together with the air, removed by vacuum pump 18. Boiled caramel syrup accumulates in the vacuum chamber 21 and with the help of a discharge device 22 is discharged from it in portions along the 15... 20 kg after 1.5... 2.0 min.

The process of boiling the syrup in a coil vacuum apparatus proceeds during 1.5... 2.0 min. The ready caramel mass with residual humidity 2.0... 3.5% at temperature 110... 130 ° С is supplied to receiving funnel of cooling machine 23.

From the receiving funnel, the caramel mass emerges with a continuous belt between two rotating hollow drums, which are cooled from the inside with water. Moving along the lower drum, it falls on an inclined plate cooled by water. A tape of mass with a thickness of 3... 6 mm and a width of 0.4... 0.6 m quickly loses heat on the cooled surfaces, forming a solid crust that prevents the adhesion of the caramel mass to the contacting surfaces of the equipment. Due to poor thermal conductivity inside the caramel mass tape, the temperature decreases slowly and the liquid state of the product remains

After the pre-cooling, the dye, acid and essence are fed to the surface of the belt from the dispensers 24 as the mass moves along the inclined plate. In the lower part of the plate, the caramel tape passes between the swivels, which roll the tape into the pipe so that the additives get inside. Then the tape is rolled by rolls and turned into a multilayer formation. On a cooling machine 23 caramel mass during 20... 25 s is cooled to an average temperature of 80... 90 ° С.

The caramel belt is then loaded by the conveyor onto the working members of the pulling machine 25, which stretch and fold the caramel strands. As a result of such treatment for 1.0... For 1.5 minutes, the caramel mass is mixed with additives, the mass temperature is equalized throughout the volume, and the mass is saturated with air bubbles, loses transparency and acquires a silky sheen.

Caramel products are molded by a complex of equipment consisting of three machines operating synchronously: caramel-wrapping 30 with filler 28, bundle-pulling 31 and caramel-wrapping 32.

Within the body of the caramel wrapping machine 30 there are six rotating corrugated spinnets. They form a cone-shaped trough, on which a drawn caramel mass is loaded with a conveyor at a temperature of 70... 80 "C. The mass is wrapped around the filler tube 28 and as the portion (batter) accumulates to 50 kg, it rolls around the spindle and gradually acquires the shape of a cone. It continuously rotates about longitudinal axis coinciding with axis of filling tube. At the exit of the machine, the top of the caramel bar is rolled in the form of an endless harness. When filling is forced into filling tube, central cavity of bundle is filled with filling. The amount of filling is dosed depending on the type of caramel and makes up from 23 to 33% of the total weight of the product.

From the wrapping machine, the caramel bundle continuously passes into the wrapping machine 31. The bundle sequentially passes through three pairs of sizing rollers, while the diameter of the bundle decreases from 45.. .50 mm to 14... 16 mm. The final size of the bundle diameter depends on the type of caramel produced.

The calibrated caramel bundle is continuously fed into a caramel vial 32 which forms and separates it into separate articles of appropriate length and shape with a pattern on the surface. Usually, caramel 30 or 38 mm long is oval or elongated-oval in shape.

Molded caramel with a temperature of 60.. .70 ° C in a continuous chain with thin bridges between the products goes to a narrow belt cooling conveyor 33 and during 12... 15 s is blown with air having a temperature of 8... 12 °C. During this period of time, a solid crust of cooled mass is formed on the surface of the articles, which eliminates caramel deformation with longer final cooling in the cooling unit.

This unit consists of a feed 34 and a discharge 36 of vibration trays, as well as a cooling cabinet 35. The latter accommodates mesh conveyor and independent air cooling and circulation system. Cabinet 35 is made in the form of a sealed chamber, inside of which the cooling air temperature is maintained at 0.. 3 ° C with a relative humidity of not more than 60%

The caramel chain coming from the conveyor 33 is laid out by the vibration tray 34 in the form of loops along the width of the mesh conveyor arranged in the cabinet 35. Caramel moves under distributing air duct through slots of which cooling air is supplied. During 1.5 minutes, the temperature of the caramel decreases to 35... 40 ° C, and the bridges between the products become hard and brittle. At the exit of the cabinet 35, the chilled caramel is poured onto the discharge vibrating tray 36, on which the bridges between the articles are finally broken and the caramel crumb is separated from the articles. The caramel from the vibration tray 36 is loaded by an intermediate conveyor 37 onto a distribution conveyor 38 for feeding articles into the feeders of the wrapping machines 39.

Caramel coming to the wrapper must correspond to the specified dimensions and shape, do not have deformation, open seams and sticking crumbs. The surface of the caramel must be dry, non-white. Caramel must be uniformly cooled and have a strength that prevents its destruction during wrapping. On machines 39, caramel is wrapped piece by piece in a label with a screwdriver. The most productive wrapping machines wrap the caramel around using roll labels and screwdrivers.

The wrapped caramel enters the assembly conveyor 40 and is loaded by the intermediate conveyor 41 into the packaging dispenser 42 in a packaging container of cardboard boxes. The boxes are then conveyed by conveyor 43 to obandering machine 44 and shipped to the expedition.