Cooling & Freezing
Process description
To maintain their quality herbs are cooled or frozen depending on whether they will be consumed soon or stored for a longer period. Lowering the temperature slows down unwanted microbiological processes or brings them to a total still stand.
Gas application
A high freezing rate of more than 5 cm/h is achieved with liquid nitrogen (LN2) or liquid carbon dioxide (LCO2) as a freezing medium, so that the cell structure of the frozen food is preserved through the fine-crystalline freezing of the water portion. This means that after defrosting no losses in cell liquid content occur. A further advantage is the prevention of dehydration and thus undesirable weight loss during the freezing process through rapid freezing of the product surface.
Advantages:
- Higher product turnover through short freezing times
- High quality of frozen products
- No dehydration losses
- Fast operation
- Low investment costs
- Takes up little space
- Long plant
- Low maintenance and repair costs (simple plant construction)
Messer solution
In order to optimally utilise the strengths of the cryogenic gases nitrogen and carbon dioxide, Messer has developed freezer units to meet a variety of requirements.
The continuously operating Cryogen-Rapid rotary tube freezer is particularly suitable for the freezing of herbs. While the product is cooled with cryogenic gas, it is in constant rotational motion. It is therefore frozen in IQF quality (IQF: Individually Quick Frozen) while it is loosely rolling and is subsequently easy to portion.