Cooking viscous sauces with Steam Infusion
Viscous sauces can be a real winner. Whether it’s a creamy dessert or a thick savoury sauce, the right viscosity can attract consumers. But they can be tricky to cook, often suffering from burn-on with traditional technologies and subsequently proving difficult to clean. So how can food manufacturers overcome these challenges and still delight their customers?
No burn-on
Burn-on is a huge problem for food manufacturers as it can cause batches to be rejected because of the presence of dark spots or colour distortion in the end product. On a traditional steam jacket system, there are often restrictions relating to viscosity because of this contamination. Thick sauces (those with a Bostwick between 2 and 5) easily stick to the hot vessel surface, in turn burning the ingredients to the pan, which can lead to poor quality end products, both in terms of appearance and flavours.
However, Steam Infusion is an extremely gentle heating process, meaning that viscous products can be cooked with zero burn-on as there is no exposure to hot surfaces as is the case with traditional systems. Unlike other steam injectors, Steam Infusion creates a low-pressure vapour phase so the ingredients are not exposed to excess temperatures whilst processing. The Vaction Pump can inject steam at rates up to 750kg/per hour at 6 Bar pressure (1650 [lb/hr] at 94 PSI). Traditional steam injectors under these conditions wouldn’t be able to condense the steam into the product and would burn the sauce.
The speed of cook with Steam Infusion leads to short residence times so there is less exposure to high temperatures, preventing the occurrence of the Maillard reaction. Fast heating with Steam Infusion can also preserve the natural colours of ingredients, improving the visual appearance to appeal to consumers. This lack of burn-on increases yields as no product is wasted and product quality is more consistent - the first batch of the day is the same as the last.
Easy cleaning
Cleaning is quick and easy when cooking viscous sauces with Steam Infusion thanks to the lack of burn-on contamination. Cleaning times are reduced by on average 40% and fewer chemicals are required as there’s zero product burnt to the surface of the vessel.
In one instance, a Spanish customer was able to transform its operations, moving from a CIP every two batches to one full CIP every ten, with just a rinse in-between thanks to the incredible results produced with Steam Infusion.
Watch how easy it is to clean the vessel after cooking a sticky caramel sauce with Steam Infusion!
What viscosity can be processed with Steam Infusion?
The upper viscosity operating limit for our Steam Infusion Vaction™ Pump is application and ingredient dependent. Generally we say that if you can pump it, you can cook it with Steam Infusion! During testing, the Vaction Pump has been proven to handle finished product up to 50,000 CPS; higher viscosities could be possible, subject to testing on-site or in our test facility.
During heating and mixing with Steam Infusion, water is added to the final product in the form of steam so there does need to be some liquid in your final product - whether that’s water, milk or oil. Typically, there is a 10% water addition from starting weight during heating from 25°C to 90°C (77°F to 194°F) - our Development Chefs are on hand to calculate the right quantities to get the best results in your application.
A more accurate water addition can be calculated by working out the amount of energy required to increase the temperature of the ingredients to the required figure. For this, we work with you to understand the specific heat capacity of your ingredients. An example for heating water from 18°C to 85°C (64°F to 185°F) is shown below.
Mass of batch: 500 kg (1100lbs)
Starting temperature: 18°C (64°F)
Final temperature set point: 85°C (185°F)
Steam Infusion operating mode: shear
Specific heat capacity of product [water]: 4.185 kJ/kg/K
Total heating time: 5 mins 27.7 seconds
Total mass of steam added: 53.68kg (118.34lbs)
Total energy requirement: 40.99kW
Total batch mass: 553.68kg (1220.66lbs)
In this example, we're estimating a Vaction Pump efficiency of 95%, but this is application dependent and will vary based on the cooking equipment.