Plate Heat Exchangers for Food and Beverage

Aiprel supplies plate heat exchangers for dairy, beverage, brewing, sugar, edible oil and fermentation processes, including heating, cooling and pasteurization.

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Food and Beverage Applications

Dairy Processing

A dairy plate heat exchanger can be used for milk pasteurization, product preheating, final cooling and heat regeneration. It may also handle cream, yogurt mix, whey and other dairy products when the plate pattern and channel gap are selected for their viscosity.

Multisection plate heat exchangers can combine regeneration, heating and cooling within one frame. Heat from outgoing pasteurized milk is transferred to incoming cold milk, reducing the external heating and cooling demand.

Typical dairy applications include:

  • Raw milk reception cooling
  • Milk pasteurization
  • Milk and cream heating
  • Yogurt-mix temperature control
  • Whey cooling
  • Ice cream mix heating and cooling
  • Cleaning-water heating

Juice and Soft Drink Production

A beverage heat exchanger provides controlled heating and cooling for fruit juice, carbonated drinks, bottled water, tea, coffee beverages, syrups and concentrates.

Rapid thermal treatment helps processors achieve the required product temperature while limiting unnecessary exposure to heat. Correct plate and gasket selection is important for acidic beverages and products containing sugar or pulp.

Common applications include:

  • Juice pasteurization
  • Product cooling before filling
  • Syrup heating and cooling
  • Process-water cooling
  • Ingredient-water heating
  • Energy recovery between product streams

Beer Brewing

A brewery plate heat exchanger rapidly cools hot wort to the required fermentation temperature. Cold water or glycol flows through one side of the exchanger while wort passes through the opposite channels.

The heat recovered from hot wort can be reused to produce warm process water, helping reduce brewery energy consumption.

Other brewing duties include:

  • Brewing-water heating
  • Wort cooling
  • Beer cooling
  • Pasteurization
  • Yeast cooling
  • Glycol-loop isolation
  • Cleaning-water heating

Wine Processing

Temperature control affects fermentation, stabilization and storage conditions in wine production. Plate heat exchangers can cool grape must before fermentation, control fermentation temperatures and support wine stabilization processes.

Applications include:

  • Grape-must cooling
  • Fermentation-loop cooling
  • Wine heating or cooling
  • Cold stabilization
  • Product temperature adjustment before bottling
  • Process-water heat recovery

Sugar Processing

Sugar production requires heating and cooling during juice clarification, evaporation, syrup processing and crystallization. Plate heat exchangers provide efficient thermal control while occupying relatively little installation space.

Wide-channel or application-specific designs may be required for sugar solutions with high viscosity, suspended fibers or a tendency to crystallize.

Typical duties include:

  • Raw juice heating
  • Clarified juice heating
  • Syrup heating and cooling
  • Condensate heat recovery
  • Evaporator feed preheating
  • Process-water heating

Edible Oil Processing

Plate heat exchangers can heat, cool and recover energy from vegetable oils during refining. Product viscosity, operating temperature and fouling tendency must be considered during selection.

Applications may include:

  • Crude oil heating
  • Degumming
  • Neutralization
  • Bleaching-stage temperature control
  • Winterization cooling
  • Refined oil cooling
  • Heat recovery during deodorization

Yeast and Fermentation

Fermentation is sensitive to temperature changes because biological activity generates heat. A plate heat exchanger can remove excess heat from the fermentation circuit and help maintain stable process conditions.

Typical applications include:

  • Yeast propagation cooling
  • Fermenter temperature control
  • Nutrient-solution cooling
  • Process-water temperature control
  • Fermentation heat recovery

 

Aiprel Heat Exchanger Solutions

Gasketed Plate Heat Exchangers

Gasketed plate heat exchangers are suitable for many food and beverage heating, cooling and heat recovery duties. The removable plate pack allows access to individual plates for inspection and mechanical cleaning.The heat transfer area can be adjusted by changing the number of plates within the allowable frame capacity.

Multisection Plate Heat Exchangers

A multisection unit performs several thermal stages within a single frame. In a pasteurization system, one section may recover heat, another heats the product to the required process temperature and a third cools it before filling or storage.This configuration reduces piping, installation space and the number of separate heat exchangers.

Wide-Channel Plate Heat Exchangers

Wide-channel plate heat exchangers are designed for products containing pulp, fibers, suspended solids or higher-viscosity ingredients. Larger flow passages help reduce blockage risk and make the equipment more suitable for products that cannot pass reliably through narrow conventional channels.

 

What Should You Consider When Selecting a Plate Heat Exchanger for Food and Beverage Processing?

Product Properties

Viscosity, density, specific heat, thermal conductivity and solids content directly affect heat exchanger performance. Product data should be provided at the actual processing temperature rather than at room temperature alone.

Hygienic Requirements

Product-contact materials, surface condition, connection design and gasket formulation should be selected according to the applicable hygiene and food-contact requirements of the destination market.Any required FDA, EU, 3-A or other food-contact documentation must be specified and confirmed during quotation rather than assumed from the standard industrial configuration.

Fouling Risk

Milk proteins, sugar, pulp, fats and other ingredients may form deposits on heat transfer surfaces. Appropriate wall temperature, flow velocity, channel gap and cleaning frequency help control fouling.

Product Particles

Products containing pulp, fibers or suspended solids may require larger plate gaps or wide-channel designs. Maximum particle size and concentration should be provided before selection.

Pressure Drop

The exchanger must provide sufficient product flow without excessive pressure loss. This is especially important for viscous products and fluids whose texture can be affected by high shear.

Cleaning-in-Place

CIP temperature, chemical concentration, cleaning time and flow rate should be evaluated together with the plate and gasket materials. The cleaning procedure must remove product deposits without damaging the exchanger.

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