Strong Blender for Processed Cheese Production

This might work for you....

http://www.fristam.com/PumpsandBlenders/MyIndustry/DairyandCheese/tabid/486/language/en-US/Default.aspx

That's not a blender thats a picture of a lube pump

But a good question to ask is if how much shear is required.

It's called a curd pump and is used in making cheese....

"Despite its versatility in the dairy industry, the FKL positive displacement pump has been nicknamed the "Curd Pump."

With the introduction of the FKL 580 model, cheese manufacturers have found a winning combination of size and cleanliness. The 580 is one of the largest CIP'able, 3-A PD pumps available, with a displacement of 1.82 gallons/revolution through 6" ports.

Processors in many areas have made the change from a sinusoidal and rotary PD pumps to the Fristam FKL. The yield has increased, as well.

At one facility in the Midwest, FKL 580s were pumping whey from fortified milk for mozzarella production (prior to the clarifier and separators). The yield has increase 0.5%, translating to tens of thousands of dollars per year."

You might want to follow the link next time and do a bit of reading before posting your incorrect reply.....

SolarEagle, I feel you are one of the best researchers in finding an answer here on cr4, but frankly, your out of your league on this and you don't know what you're talking about, all what you did is just regurgitating a googled website.

That my friend is not a blender its a lobe pump ^{(I may had a typo on my ipad on my earlier post and have spelled it as lube)}

But I did reread it, I may have missed something, but i didn't. Here is the pump.

You on the other hand and I'm sure or hope you read it, but, understanding it is another issue.

I have been designing process equipment for the dairy industry for over 20 years. and it was not 20 years of experience of googling, it was designing and trouble shooting, I prefer Waukesha myself to use as a 'curd pump'. But, I'll give you Fristram may have 'coined' it, but as far as I'm concerned and the industry, curd pump is used to describe the pump that pumps curd is as generic as the term xerox something is the same as copy something.

All other sanitary pumps I prefer Alfa myself. prior to the merger, I used to do allot of G&H and it's sister company Tri-clover all of which is Alfa. How did I learn? this I did not regurgitate it out of the website specs. I specified, designed, and commissioned process equipment from the milk intake right into packaging and everything in between. 99% in the production of cheese.

Here's something that isn't written on the website, did you know, you have to specify the type of pump tolerances due to the environment, to pump curd the tolerances have to be 'looser' to accommodate the higher heat.

Did you noticed that on its web site that it's first close tolerance PD pump? Do you know why it would say that?

This was made because to CIP the other pumps, the lubes sometimes, but not all the times had to be removed, and for two reasons, and I'll tell you one reason ^{(its getting late for me)} because on the larger pumping you have to have a required minimum GPM going through the larger line, hence through that pump, so being a PD pump and a lower flow rate look at the displacement and the RPM, to meet the required CIP flow, what has to be done you put a orifice to feed the CIP into the 'Curd' pump to the pumps full capacity and a bypass to take care of the rest of the cip solution, which is the majority of the CIP flow rate.

And EVEN this does not guarantee it being cleaned............. oh, btw, you will not read that in your google, its a practice used in industry. I have some paragraphs in some of my white papers written on this very thing if your interested.

• "Cheese Blending and Cooking"

And others that touches off on this:

• "Troubleshooting and Proper Sizing and Application of Steam Boiler for Cheese Processing"
• "Dewatering, Brining and Fractionation through Ultra-filtration & Reverse Osmosis"

The fractionation, well, I thru that in for good measure.

So back to my correct post, that is not a blender thats a pump. And if I'm wrong please point it out to me in your own words that makes process sense not something thats googled. As far as shear, well, from what you displayed to me so far, you'll have to google it, but I'll give you a two little hints........

1. There are (4) four types of shear
2. It has something to do with rheology....

By the way, I designed a gasketless discharge door on a cheese blender, I have a video of it I can sent it your way, just PM me your email address.

I will not belabor the point but yield to your specialized knowledge in this field....I will just add that a pump such as the one cited can be used to blend wet ingredients, and let the OP make a determination as to what best suits his needs....As to your miscommunication of characterization, it happens....The site I linked to has dry blenders as well, and specializes in dairy/cheese process equipment...Not all my links provide the particular knowledge somebody may be looking for, but it does at least initiate a dialog so more specific information can be given....It's a process....

I'm a little disappointed, I was hoping that I totally missed something and would be corrected and learn something new.

I saw the blenders on the site, but when I saw the pump so prominently called out, I latched onto it rather aggressively in hopes to either learn something new, or call out the misdirection/misunderstanding. And in reference of what I said earlier, I feel you you're the best here on cr4 to do it.

I hate to abuse this 'cliche, but have someone like you thinking 'outside the box' with fresh ideas, to teach a old dog with a stale routine some new tricks

Google "homogenisers".

Homo's are not blenders.

usually when blending you add emulsifiers to the batch.

I think an industrial blender would be strong enough. I saw one in a bakery once. It was giant and had a sharp blade to cut through the dough. That might work.

Industrial blender? There are sanitary standards that need to be followed.

you do not have enough information, any prior reponses is near useless. A few questions first.

1.) Why type of cheese? Softer cheeses, like cheddars, or your harder cheeses like Romano or Parmesan, or mix.

2.) what's your batch rate? This you may have to ask oem

3.) how many pounds (Kilo's) per batch? 100 - 5000 lb

4.) what's the finished product size are you looking for pre or post cook? Sauces, or prep cook.

Maybe one of these?

Instead of buying a massive blender to process the entire batch in one shot, you can use a continuous blender that has to only process 20-30 seconds of cheese.

We recommend the blender by Readco Kurimoto.

http://www.readco.com/continuous-mixing.html

Hello delmar,

thanks for the picture

I first heard about continued blenders in the mid 90's.

The concern I have is there has to be a way to meter all the ingredients accurately, if you blending cheeses, the most accurate is by weight. That would be pretty difficult on a continuous blenders

I'll have to look through your link, maybe there is something I missed that they came up with to address that issue.

You are correct that metering of the raw ingredients is critical to the performance of the continuous blender. Otherwise its garbage in, garbage out. However I disagree with your assertion that it is "difficult". There is an entire industry dedicated to providing gravimetric powders feeders (Loss-in-Weight), and liquid coriolis flowmeters have been a staple of the industry for decades.

A fully integrated control system is required to ensure the individual ingredients are delivered reliably and in the correct proportions. Following is a link to the Readco control solution: http://www.readco.com/system-controls.html

Disclaimer: Respondents company provides control integration for said blender manufacturer. This can be interpreted as:
A) respondent is uniquely qualified in the above subject matter.
B) respondent is blatantly participating in self-promotion.
It is the responsibility of the reader to interpret the information and arrive at their own conclusions.

I was looking into this, it's quite interesting, I see that it does imatation cheeses, which having done this (Imatation Parmesan) is very hard on the equipment.

As interesting as this is, I was looking farther into it, I have now moved to my next concern on the list, and that is, I'm not sure what the correct term to call it, but I call it loading.

This happens on grinders and blenders, where the product (in this case cheese) would adhere to the screws and basically spin with the screws where very little action takes place, in this case blending action. This usually happens on your higher moisture cheeses.

So, I'll dig a little deeper.

I looked on whose online and saw OP was looking at his thread here. It would be nice to get alittle feedback also from him.....

The screws have minimal clearances and completely intermesh so are self-cleaning. I just returned from a test where the mixer was fed 100% reground asphalt shingle powder (RAS) and it effectively melted and discharged viscous asphalt glop out the other end.

Visualize the mixer as a low-pressure extruder sans die plate.

My experinence using it for cheese, whether its a grinder or blender, the higher moisture cheeses (softer) would adhere to the screw and do nothing.

That would solve that issue.

What's interesting, part of it is very simular to an plastic extruder. and Yes, I notice that from your original picture.

I know this an old post, but I just came across this.

We used (rented) one of those last fall (a prototype), for a research and development project we have at work..... At this point, our product is too thermally unstable for a satisfied performance.

Btw, Kiyotaka Takahashi, forgive me.

But at times, one gets too focused that we failed to welcome you to CR4.