Blending difficult dry ingredients

Hi Everyone,

I work for a small company that produces fruit based products.  We have been having difficulties mixing in a soluble vegetable fibre - lumps occur with the way we mix.  The product we are mixing it into does not have any additional water or dry ingredients. We use fruit concentrate as the liquid ingredient that the fibre is mixed into.  At the moment we tip the fibre into the top of a mixing tank (with paddle agitation) and the fibre sticks to the paddles and then forms lumps which fall into the product.  I was wondering if anyone out there has another way of incorporating vegetable fibre or gums into liquid that doesn't cause lumps? 

Morning Julz, can i have an idea of recipe (ish - trade secrets and all that),  and type of mixing vessel. What is the expected product and type of viscocity after mixing?

Cheers

J

Have you tried mixing by hand? Take a small quantity of the conc. juice and mix in the powder using a whisk or similar. Then add to the rest of the juice.

Morning Julz, can i have an idea of recipe (ish - trade secrets and all that),  and type of mixing vessel. What is the expected product and type of viscocity after mixing?

 

Cheers

J

Thanks for the response Daddywelsh,

The viscosity of the finished product is very thick (150,000 - 200,000cP).  We puree up fruit and add to the concentrates.  The puree is added to the concentrates so the product gets progressively thicker as the puree is added. The mixing vessel is a jacketed kettle with paddle (gate) agitator.   The fibre is added at 6% and we currently add it in stages while other ingredients are being added.

We are open to buying equipment to incorporate the fibre into the product, although I am not sure what equipment would be suitable

Have you tried mixing by hand? Take a small quantity of the conc. juice and mix in the powder using a whisk or similar. Then add to the rest of the juice.

Thanks Brummy Jim, 

But I am talking approx 2 MT batches.  It would take a big whisk. :giggle:   Fine for lab batches though.

Dear Julz,

You said that you use another ingredients too. If they are also in dry form then try to mix them evenly in dry form before put them into mixer. I have an experience when using gum as an additive (thickener). I mix it first with other dry ingredients before add water at the next mixing step.

Another way is mix this dry ingredient with some part of liquid using high speed blender first.

Kind regards

Avila

Try pre-blending / pre-mixing with other dry ingredients you add to the product.  If you add granulated sugar pre-mixing with this can be very effective to allow for even dispersion.  Temperature is key as well as the product should be quite hot when adding the vegetable fiber.  

I would also recommend a high shear blender.  In my previous experience we made fruit bases in a very similar way you do.  We had high shear blenders for addition of stabilizers, gums, thickeners to prevent lumping.  There was one problem child ingredient and we had to buy a heated blender / liqwifier in order to eliminate the lumping and fish eyes.

Thanks for the response Daddywelsh,

The viscosity of the finished product is very thick (150,000 - 200,000cP).  We puree up fruit and add to the concentrates.  The puree is added to the concentrates so the product gets progressively thicker as the puree is added. The mixing vessel is a jacketed kettle with paddle (gate) agitator.   The fibre is added at 6% and we currently add it in stages while other ingredients are being added.

We are open to buying equipment to incorporate the fibre into the product, although I am not sure what equipment would be suitable

In  a previous life i was mixing a ton of cheesecake batter or sauce at a time and would make a slurry out of some of the liquid and dry ingredients that were causing the issue of lumps with an agitator or a whisk seperatly then adding later into the process. Sometimes this could be a few smaller mixes in buckets added in stages. We had one really thick mix and sadly there was no quick method and had to be mixed gently and in many stages, not great for efficiency but great when finished. You also have to ask yourself whether the mix needs to be as thick and possibly find alternative ingredients to help with the problem. In the past ive made 1 mix into 2 separate mixes which were blended together later on which actually saved time and quality issues. I think someone said above about getting hold of an industrial blender to help the cause, You may have to re-think the whole process and start again.

Cheers j