Stainless motors in the fruit juice blend

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Feb 19, 2008

The Marlin stainless motor is the "natural" partner for Ytron-Y ByPass mixers.

David Berryman of Dunstable is the UK's largest blender of fruit juices and manufacturer of fruit juice bases, supplying to customers around the world.

The company is at the forefront of its field and is very much involved with the introduction of new products and fruits to the drinks market.

Examples include work with such fruits as Gogii and Acai berries and the production of bases for new own brand fruit drinks for the Julian Graves, the health food company.

This is in addition to the company's involvement with the some 40% of the new juice and soft drinks found on the shelves of our supermarkets.

This work involves both small batch production such as initial sample quantities that can be produced on a laboratory desk top up to 28 tonne production runs.

In between these two extremes is batch mixing in 500kg vessels where a large proportion of its bases are prepared.

It is in these vessels that the company prepares most of its fruit juice bases, adding such ingredients as pectin, ascorbic and citric acids, preservatives and, more recently, pre-biotics - a form of healthy bacteria.

Although it is relatively easy to achieve effective mixing of ingredients in table-top quantities and blending of juices in high volumes, efficient mixing of ingredients that include dry powders can present problems.

These include effective distribution through the mix and component agglomeration.

To eliminate these problems David Berryman has invested in a new all-stainless-steel high-shear mixer, complete with stainless steel motor, from Ytron-Quadro.

Called the Ytron-Y ByPass, it incorporates an integral feed chute that delivers ingredients directly to the mixing head below the liquid level.

This ensures ingredients are instantly wetted, suspended or dissolved to achieve a truly homogeneous mix.

It is equally effective for both dry ingredients and liquids, even high viscous ones, with the negative pressure created by the rotating mixer head helping to draw the ingredients into the mix.

Features of this Ytron-Y ByPass mixer are a special mixer head with castellations to help the high shear mixing action and a stainless-steel motor from Marlin Stainless.

According to Dudley Bradley of Ytron-Quadro, the Marlin stainless motor is the "natural" partner for his mixers.

"With total corrosion resistance and no paint to flake the risk of batch contamination is completely eliminated", says Bradley.

"Also, being smooth bodied there are no crevices to harbour material facilitating easy hose-down cleaning - which is no problem with the motor being IP66 rated".

Bradley also adds that even for applications where a stainless-steel shroud for a conventional motor might be considered as an alternative, there is no cost benefit, plus airborne material can be sucked into the fan cowl to cause a potential contamination risk.

Asked how important stainless-steel equipment is for David Berryman, MD Nick Eckert says: "Everything".

"With everything we do hygiene is king".

"So this totally stainless mixer-motor package is an ideal solution for our needs".

"It performs really well achieving effective mixing of all ingredients quickly and quietly and is easy to clean with a high pressure hose".