Food Products Evaporation 379

2. The boiling point, as a colligative property, and density, as a mass to vol-

ume relation, increasing are also a consequence of the solids concentration,
the boiling point elevation causes more steam consumption, and density
augment causes more pump work.
3. Flow properties alter due to the concentration phenomenon; the viscosity of
Newtonians fluids increase as the solid content of the concentrate increases,
for example, syrups, sugar solutions, and milk, up to certain solids level.
Other food items modify its rheological nature from Newtonian to non-New-
tonian behavior; thus liquids such as milk, nonclarified juices, and fruit and
vegetable purees may develop structural modifications, causing lower heat
transfer coefficients, higher energy needs, and particular pump requirements.
4. Fouling of the heat transfer surface may be the result of thermal damage,
viscosity and density increasing, or components deposition, which implies a
reduction in the overall heat transfer coefficient and a major need for cleaning.
5. Foaming of some food components present in the liquid foods that incorpo-
rates air and causes a lower heat flow due to a decrease in the corresponding
convective coefficient. Some noncondensable gases may produce the same
effect as air incorporation due to a decrease in the convection efficiency.
6. Other liquid food properties, such as the specific heat and thermal conduc-
tivity, may be altered.

As a result of this variation in the liquid food properties, many evaporator designs
have been developed by the manufacturers, and the selection of the evaporator type
depends on the characteristics of the specific food.

12.2  THREE CONCENTRATED FOOD PRODUCTS

Food concentrating is used to eliminate water of liquid item at such levels in which
the liquid condition of the food is retained. The evaporation of water in milk and
vegetable industries is favored by vacuum application in the equipment.
The utilization of subatmospheric pressures in evaporators performing and the low
water activity achieved in food concentrates may imply some risks of microorganisms
growing; therefore sanitation is of prime importance. Cleaning in place by circula-
tion of chemical fluids, such as hot detergents, sanitizers, and water, complete with
mechanical cleaning when needed, is widely applied in food evaporation industries.

12.2.1  Orange Juice

Orange is widely cultivated around the world. In 2003, the estimated world produc-
tion of orange, grapefruit, pomelos, lemons, and limes was 60.04 × 106 tons in which
Greece contributed with 1.200, China 1.647, Mexico 3.969, and USA 10.473 × 106
tons (Hui, 2006). Concentrated orange juice as a source of nutrients, minerals, and
flavor is manufactured by evaporation units under vacuum in pans, circulating evapo-
rators of one or multiple effects, as one alternative to orange juices prepared by freez-
ing. Although the level of concentration for orange juice is normally 62°Bx, this fruit
concentrate may be reach up to 65°Bx or 75% total solids concentration (Borgstrom,
380 Food Engineering Handbook

1969), or with the aim of increasing savings the juice may be concentrated up to 72°Bx
(Crandal et al., 1987); and depending on the final utilization, the concentrate may be
combined with fresh juice for human consumption, added with sugar for soft-drinks,
added with sodium citrate to prevent jellying, or completed with other ingredients.
A simple description of the orange juice preparation includes the following stages:
washing, sorting, spray-rinsing, and conveying of the oranges to the extraction unit,
in which the fruits are squeezed to obtain the juice and residual pulp, thus produc-
ing a high-quality orange juice with low content of peel oil. In the finishing stage,
the extracted juice is separated from the pulp to be pumped to the evaporators. The
evaporation unit normally employs a flash concentration at temperatures above 87°C
that requires a few minutes to concentrate the juice from 12% to 65% solids. The
concentrated juice is then cooled down to 15°C or less. In order to recover vola-
tile components the concentrate is blended with fresh or extracted juice to reach a
desired level of solids. Some evaporated juices are mixed with recovered essences
coming from a distillation unit, but it is more unstable and the volatile gases are lost
on storage (Woodroof and Luh, 1986; Hui, 2006).

12.2.2 Tomato Concentrate
Enormous quantities of tomato are consumed as puree, paste, ketchup, and sauce that
are concentrated products. Several important aspects, such as tomato variety and
pectin retention, will contribute to the final characteristics of the products, particu-
larly to their consistency. In the manufacturing process, great care of the tomatoes
should be completed in harvesting, transporting, and storing, because they are not
peeled. Some basic ideas of the process of each tomato concentrate in their different
presentations are commented next.
Tomato puree follows the following food processing operations: washing and
stemming, sorting, some of the vegetables may be trimmed, and all are converted
into pulp in the pulping stage. Heating, pumping, and concentration are the next
steps for the pulp.
Open kettles and vacuum pans, double and triple effects, are commonly used
for the concentration, producing products of less quality if the first equipment is
employed, whereas with the reduction of the boiling point (≤71°C) in the second,
it will contribute to a better color and flavor of the puree. The level of concentra-
tion is from 5% to 18% in the first, from 18% to 25% in the second effect, and from
25% to 28–30% in the final evaporator, depending on the definite specific gravity,
1.040–1.045. To prevent foaming and sticking of the pulp on the surface, water is
sprayed on the hot zones, or sometimes cottonseed oil may be added on it. Finally,
the concentrated pulp flows through the finisher of 0.7–0.8 mm diameter, before the
canning and thermal treatment (Luh and Woodroof, 1988; Smith et al., 1997).
Tomato paste is obtained by a similar manufacturing process, in which the con-
centration operation is longer to reach higher solids content. A concentrated tomato
paste must contain around 33% of total solids; the standards of identity require 25%
of solids at least.
Tomato ketchup and sauce, in addition to the aforementioned unit operations,
in which the most important is the concentration process by evaporation, include a
Food Products Evaporation 381

stage of spicing after the concentration. Garlic and onion powders, salt, spice oils,
sugar, and vinegar are some of the more common; they are incorporated as a blend.
Ketchup may contain 32–35% of solids, 1.145–1.165 of specific gravity, whereas
sauce with similar solids content is characterized by a higher intensity of the added
spices, depending on its final presentation such as chili, hot, pizza or spaghetti sauce,
among others (Luh and Woodroof, 1988; Smith et al., 1997).

12.2.3 Evaporated and Condensed Milks

Although milk has the appearance of a simple liquid, its structure is very complex,
knowledge of it is necessary to better understand those changes through processing
and the properties of intermediate and finished dairy products. Chemically, milk is
integrated by several hundreds of constituents, some of which have special signifi-
cance, even though they are present in low concentrations. The components of milk
include proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, minerals, pigments, vitamins, enzymes, and
miscellaneous compounds.
From the physical–chemical point of view, milk is a complex solution of salts,
lactose, and other hydrophilic minor components where whey proteins, casein cor-
puscular micelles, and fat globules are dispersed. The physical state of the dispersed
phase represents two separate colloidal forms: a suspension and an emulsion; this
double colloidal system provides milk with more divergent product structures than
most other food ingredients. Proteins and lipids are the most important milk com-
ponents because their physicochemical modifications affect the structure and overall
behavior of dairy products (Vélez-Ruiz, 1996; Marcelín and Vélez-Ruiz, 2013). Fresh
milk has limited stability; therefore it may be processed to preserve the milk compo-
nents and to augment its shelf life, and one of the most commonly used techniques is
to decrease water content by evaporation and drying in order to lower water activity.
The application of evaporation to fresh milk, in which falling films in multiple
evaporators are usually utilized varying from one to seven (Verdurmen and de Jong,
2003), produces concentrated milk with three different products as the more impor-
tant, namely, evaporated milk, condensed milk, and sweetened condensed milk.
Concentration of milk as a preservation method is competitively merchandized in
different parts of the world; it may be distributed even in remote zones as one of its
main advantages. The milk products most commonly found on the market shelves
are the evaporated and sweetened condensed presentations.
The manufacturing process for the concentration of raw milk normally includes
the following food processing operations: reception of fresh milk, verification and
authentication of milk quality (solid content, microorganism count, and detection of
foreign constituents, among others) and cooling, standardization and mass formation
to get the needed composition and volume, heating, and homogenization to achieve
fracture of milk fat, air elimination, and pasteurization or preheating previous to
the concentration process. If three effects necessary with vacuum are involved in
the concentration, the level of concentration is from 12–15% to 18–21% of solids
in the first evaporator, from 18% to 30–33% in the second effect, and from 30% to
42–45% in the final stage; in all the equipments they work with vacuum, contributing
to avoid damages to the milk components due to a decrease in the boiling point. In
382 Food Engineering Handbook

accordance with Verdurmen and de Jong (2003), the boiling temperatures vary from
70–80°C in the first unit and from 40–50% in the last unit. Contrary to juices con-
centration, the loss of volatiles in milk evaporation is considered a beneficial aspect.
The concentration process involves water removal by boiling, reducing the inter-
particle spaces with respect to the fresh milk. As a consequence of high temperatures
during the evaporation process, physicochemical changes occur within individual
milk components, particularly in whey proteins and casein. The specific structural
modifications for the two commercial types of concentrated milk, evaporated and
sweetened condensed, have an important influence on their properties and particu-
larly on flow behavior. Thermal treatment causes most of the changes in the struc-
ture of milk concentrates. These changes involve fusion of the protein micelles, and
sometimes of fat globules and protein bodies, forming entirely new structures. The
specific structural modifications for these two types of concentrated milk, evapo-
rated and sweetened condensed, have much relevance to their final characteristics.
Evaporated milk contains all the original milk solids in a reduced water volume.
The homogenization and heat processes required for the manufacture of this dairy
product to ensure good storage properties strongly affect the colloidal state of pro-
teins and fat components.
Sweetened condensed milk is essentially a suspension of lactose crystals and col-
loidal proteins in a saturated solution of lactose and sucrose. This kind of dairy prod-
uct is unlikely to show a simple Newtonian behavior. The most important physical
phenomenon in sweetened condensed milk studied by researchers is the age-thick-
ening process. Both consistency and thickening determine the level of consumer
acceptability, and are strongly influenced by the elaboration process. The viscosity
of this dairy product must be high enough to prevent sedimentation and fat rise but
low enough to enable the product to be poured easily from the container. When age-
thickening is developed, a slow irreversible change occurs in the size or shape of the
casein micelles, but the role of whey proteins in this physical change is not clearly
known (Vélez-Ruiz, 1996; Marcelín and Vélez-Ruiz, 2013).

12.3  EVAPORATION PRINCIPLES

Most evaporators for liquid foods operate under vacuum conditions with a boiling tem-
perature in the range of 45–75°C as a function of the reached vacuum at the correspond-
ing evaporator stage. This decreasing in the boiling point of food items minimizes the
thermal degradation of food components. Although the vapor generated in each unit is
superheated, when it enters the next evaporator, the condensation inside the heat transfer
zone happens at that temperature corresponding to the pressure of the unit where it was
generated. If negative pressure is not incorporated, the boiling temperature would be
high (>100°C, at atmospheric pressure) that is obviously not recommended.

12.3.1 Engineering and Design

In each stage of the evaporator, the concentrating food stays for a time that is gov-
erned by the desired concentration, the maintained vacuum and the heat trans-
fer characteristics. The boiling liquid flows up or down along the tube or plate