IES980604A2 - A method for manufacturing a beverage - Google Patents

Abstract

A fruit juice based beverage is manufactured by adding fruit juice with water and acidity regulator to a vessel, mixing the ingredients in the vessel to provide a concentrate, delivering the concentrate to a concentrate balance tank, delivering water to a water balance tank and proportionately mixing the water with the concentrate to form a beverage. A pre-set volume of the beverage thus formed is filled into a bottle (20), the bottle (20) is fitted with a closure and the bottles (20) are passed through a pasteuriser at a temperature and for a time to transfer at least 400 pasteurisation units to the beverage.

Description

The invention relates to a method for manufacturing a fruit juice based beverage.

This invention is directed towards providing an improved method for manufacturing beverages of this type which will overcome at least some of these difficulties.

Statements of Invention According to the invention there is provided a method for manufacturing a fruit juice based beverage comprising the steps of:15 adding fruit juice with water and acidity regulator to a vessel; mixing the ingredients in the vessel to provide a concentrate; delivering the concentrate to a concentrate balance tank; delivering water to a water balance tank; proportionately mixing the water with the concentrate to form a beverage; filling a pre-set volume of the beverage thus formed into a bottle; closing the bottle containing the beverage with a closure; IE 980604 ·2· passing the bottles through a pasteuriser at a temperature and for a time to transfer at least 400 pasteurisation units to the beverage; leading the pasteurised bottles through a holding area having a capacity at least equivalent to the pasteurisation processing time; and packaging the bottles of pasteurised beverage.

Ideally the mixing is carried out at ambient temperature.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention during pasteurisation approximately 500 pasteurisation units are transferred beverage.

Preferably the mixture is pasteurised at a maximum temperature of greater than 68°C held for a period of at least 10 minutes, ideally at a maximum temperature of approximately 70°C for a period of approximately 15 minutes within 2°C of the maximum temperature.

In a preferred arrangement the method includes the steps, after pasteurisation, of:applying a stream of air to at least a local area of a bottle to dry the local area; and applying a neck sleeve, label and/or indicia to the dried local area.

In one case the stream of air is applied to the neck of the pasteurised bottle to substantially dry the neck area of the bottle to receive a neck sleeve and/or indicia. Preferably the air is applied to the bottle neck through a plurality of directed air nozzles spaced apart around the bottle. Ideally the air nozzles are of substantially the same size so that each nozzle delivers approximately an equal volume of air to the local area to which it is applied for controlled local drying of IE 980604 -3the area. Typically the method includes the step of adjusting the position of the nozzles to tailor the drying air stream to a particular bottle shape, size, or type.

In another case the local area is a printed code receiving area. Preferably the local area is dried by applying a directed air stream to a desired code receiving area of the bottle. Typically the printed code is applied to the area by an automatic code applying printing means and the method includes the step of adjusting the position of the code applying printing means to correspond with a desired bottle and a desired code position of the bottle. Preferably the directed air stream is applied through an air nozzle which is adjustable in position to tailor the air stream to the desired area.

Brief Description of the Drawings The invention will be more clearly understood from the following description thereof given by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a method for manufacturing a juice-based beverage according the invention; Fig. 2 is a perspective view of a bottle drying apparatus used in the method of the invention; Fig. 3 is a perspective view of a local area drying and printing apparatus used in the method of the invention; Fig. 4 is a cross sectional view of the apparatus of Fig. 3 in the direction of the arrows IV - IV; IE 980604 -4Fig. 5 is a cross sectional view of the apparatus of Fig. 3 in the direction of the arrows V - V; and Fig. 6 is a plan view of the apparatus of Fig. 4.

Detailed Description Referring to the drawings and initially to Fig. 1, the invention provides a method for manufacturing a beverage in which fruit juice concentrate such as a mixture of lime juice and peach juice concentrates, acidity regulator (citric acid), flavouring and water are mixed 1 to form a beverage concentrate.

The concentrate is delivered to a concentrate balance tank 2. Water 3, is delivered to a separate water balance tank 4. The water and concentrate are then proportionately mixed 5 to form a beverage.

In step 6, a pre-set volume of the beverage thus formed, is automatically filled into a bottle and a closure such as a screw cap 7 is applied. The filled and capped bottles are then pasteurised in a flow through tunnel pasteuriser 8. The temperature and residence time in the pasteuriser is optimised to achieve a transfer of at least 400, preferably approximately 500 pasteurisation units to the beverage. This is achieved at a minimum temperature of greater than 70°C for a period of approximately 15 minutes within 2°C of the maximum temperature.

Referring also to Fig. 2, bottles 20 containing the pasteurised beverage exiting from the pasteuriser along a conveyor 22 are passed though a drying station 21 at which heated air is applied 9 to at least a local area, in this case the neck portion of the bottles 20. A stream of heated air is applied from a plurality of nozzles 24 which are arranged around the bottle necks on a support 25. Heated air is delivered to the nozzles 24 along delivery pipes 26 from a common supply 27. The nozzles 24 are mounted on associated brackets 28 which are adjustably mounted on the support IE 980604 -525. In this way, the stream of air may be directed to a desired area of any size or shaped bottle. In this case, the stream of air is directed particularly to the bottle neck to blow-off any condensed water on the outside of the bottle necks prior to application of a heat shrunk neck sleeve in step 10. A label is also applied in this step.

Referring in particular to Figs. 3 to 6 the bottles 20 are then delivered continuously along a conveyor 30 to a local area drying station 31 at which a local area, in this case the bottom of the side wall of the bottle is heated/dried 11 in advance of code printing 12 at an automatic code applying printing station 40. The local area drying station comprises an air heater 32 fitted with a nozzle 33 which is directed to deliver a stream of heated air to the bottom of the bottle side wall. The heater 32 is adjustably mounted by a bracket 34 to a support 35. In this way the stream of heated air may be directed to substantially remove moisture from the surface of a desired local area of the bottles 20.

A printing head 41 is adjustably mounted by a bracket 42 to a support 43 downstream of the local area drying/heating station 31 to apply a code such as a batch code and/or a use-by date to the bottle which has been previously dried. This leads to a highly efficient permanent coding of the bottles with minimum downtime. Both the heater 32 and the associated print head 41 may be readily adjusted in position to correspond with a desired local area of any size, shape or type of bottle.

After local area coding, the botdes 20 are delivered into an in-line holding area at which the bottles may be held-up 13 in the event of a backlog in subsequent handling. In this way, the output from the expensive pasteurisation stage can be accommodated pending resolution of any downsteam processing difficulties. Thus, production is optimised.

IE 980604 -6The bottles 20 may then be correlated 14 into a desired arrangement of rows before packaging 15. The packages are then palletised.

The invention provides a highly efficient method for manufacturing a beverage on an industrial scale.

The invention is not limited to the embodiments hereinbefore described which may be varied in detail.

Claims (5)

Claims

1. A method for manufacturing liquid fruit juice-based beverage comprising the steps oftadding fruit juice with water and acidity regulator to a vessel; mixing the ingredients in the vessel to provide a concentrate; delivering the concentrate to a concentrate balance tank; delivering water to a water balance tank; proportionately mixing the water with the concentrate to form a beverage; filling a pre-set volume of the beverage thus formed into a bottle; closing the bottle containing the beverage with a closure; passing the bottles through a pasteuriser at a temperature and for a time to transfer at least 400 pasteurisation units to the beverage; and packaging the bottles of pasteurised beverage.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the mixing is carried out at ambient temperature.

3. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein, during pasteurisation approximately 500 pasteurisation units are transferred to the beverage. IE 980604 -84. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the beverage is pasteurised at a maximum temperature of greater than 68°C held for a period of at least 10 minutes, preferably the beverage is pasteurised at a maximum temperature of approximately 70°C for a period of approximately 15 minutes within 2°C of the maximum temperature.

4.

5. A fruit juice based beverage whenever manufactured by a method as claimed in any preceding claim.