Product & Ingredient Heating

That depends on the product, and the most reliable answer comes from your own run history or a bench test. Proteins and sugars tend to set the lowest limits. We design to hold the wall within a chosen margin of the product temperature, then work back to the medium temperature that produces it, so give us any temperature where you have seen deposit start.

Counter-current gives the closest approach and the most heat per plate, so it is the default. Co-current puts the hottest medium against the coldest product, which keeps the wall cooler where the product leaves at its peak temperature. On very burn-sensitive product we sometimes trade a little surface for that protection.

Particles that must arrive whole need a low-shear pump and wide channels, so a Free-Flow plate paired with a positive displacement pump is the usual start. Inclusions that are allowed to break are less demanding. Tell us the largest particle size and how fragile it is, because that decides gap and pass arrangement before thermal sizing begins.

It can, if the selection is made against the hardest product in the range rather than the most common one. Viscosity, burn-on temperature and particles may each come from a different product, so we check every recipe. List the products with their flows and temperatures, and note which one runs longest.

Burn-on is the usual cause, since deposit narrows the channels at the same time it insulates the wall. A slow rise across a shift is normal and sets the cleaning interval, while a sudden jump often points to a blockage at a port. Trending product side pressure drop is the cheapest early warning you can install on a product heater.

Some starches and protein blends gain viscosity as they heat, which reverses the usual pattern and loads the hot end with the highest pressure drop. The pass arrangement is then set to keep velocity up where the product thickens. Send viscosity data across the full heating range, or a sample, so we do not size against a curve that bends the wrong way.