A method for concentrating aqueous mixtures and particularly mixtures which contain volatile desirable components such as flavor constituents is disclosed. An aqueous feed mixture is cooled sufficiently to produce ice crystals therein. The ice crystals are removed from the chilled mixture to produce a liquid phase from which some of the water has been removed and which is therefore concentrated. The concentrated liquid phase is split into two portions, one of which is collected as a first product, the other being first treated to separate the volatile components, which are recycled to the freezing step in which the ice crystals are formed. The residual liquid after the volatile component separation is then concentrated thermally in a conventional fashion to produce a second concentrated product which can be mixed with the first product to produce a product having a desired solids concentration and containing at least a substantial proportion of the original volatile components present in the feed.
A process for preparing a malt liqueur from a fermented wort initially comprising at least about 40% by weight barley malt. The process comprises an initial filtration of the fermented wort to provide an essentially particulate-free liquid comprising alcohol and water. The liquid is freeze concentrated to produce a concentrated alcohol liquid base to which can be added and mixed natural or synthetic flavorings to thereby produce a liqueur product.
In this invention, a grape juice concentrate is produced by crushing grapes to extract grape juice (10, 11), subjecting the grape juice to a first stage vacuum concentration (19) before it ferments by heating the grape juice and subjecting it to a low pressure (vacuum) to separate it into a distillate and a grape juice concentrate which has a Baume between 25 and 40, subsequently subjecting the concentrate to a second stage of vacuum concentration (31), also by heating under vacuum conditions, and packaging (42) the second stage concentrate when its Baume lies between 38 and 55. The second stage concentrate can be creamed (43) by high speed agitation before packaging, provided it is sufficiently fluent (e.g. a Baume of 40).
This invention relates to a novel method and system for recovering water from fruit. Water is evaporated from juice during a concentration process. The water can be bottled and distributed to consumers. Water vapor is condensed and water is collected. Preferably, a distribution cone is used for evaporating the water vapor. The water produced has improved purity characteristics.
An elongated column of ice crystals is effectively used as a filtration medium for separating the flavor and color components from a juice in connection with an overall concentration process. Juice is fed into the top of the column and flows down through the ice crystal bed. Simultaneously, ice crystals are introduced into the column from the bottom in a countercurrent manner. Substantially all of the flavor and color components of the juice will become trapped by the ice crystals. After the juice has traversed the length of the column, the filtrate is easily and inexpensively concentrated to increase its Brix by evaporation. Flavor and color components are recovered from the ice crystals using a wash column. The flavor components are combined with the concentrated serum to yield a final concentrated juice product.
