Consistency is the most important trait for large-batch products.
Werner Electric Supply
04/04/2019
When a company makes a product for human consumption, all ingredients must be measured to a specific value and added at the proper time in order to achieve the ideal product.
Image 1. Tanks of ingredient lines are being totalized (Images courtesy of the author)
Positive displacement (PD) pumps, flow meters, proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers and other mechanical inline mixing devices all play a part in automating food and beverage processes. These devices are what makes large batches of any food or beverage product not only possible, but also consistent.
For example, a batch of iced tea requires several ingredients. For the sake of easy math, here are smaller numbers to illustrate the point. There are 822 pounds of product for the iced tea. The breakdown is as follows:
- 500 pounds of water
- 250 pounds of sweetener
- 58.5 pounds of tea concentrate
- 13.5 pounds of citric acid
- 121.7 pounds of water [0.2433 x 500 pounds = 121.7 pounds per hour]
- 60.8 pounds of sweetener [0.2433 x 250 pounds = 60.8 pounds per hour]
- 14.2 pounds of tea concentrate [0.2433 x 58.5 pounds = 14.2 pounds per hour]
- 3.3 pounds of citric acid [0.2433 x 13.5 pounds = 3.3 pounds per hour]
- 0.0338 pounds of water
- 0.0168 pounds of sweetener
- 0.00394 pounds of tea concentrate
- 0.000916 pounds of citric acid
- a hard copy documenting the recipe, ingredients, time, date, operator, etc.
- a batch number, which allows each batch to be traced
- a batch report explaining how things ran during the process