JP3136279B2 - Manufacturing method of sterilized liquid food containing solid ingredients - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a liquid food, such as various soups and stews, including a solid food material, which can be easily sterilized at room temperature or in a refrigerated state while maintaining good food quality. The present invention relates to a method for producing a sterilized liquid food that can be packaged and that can obtain a sterilized liquid food in the air or the like without performing a series of packaging operations under a sterile atmosphere.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Back-in boxes that can be hermetically sealed and packaged in the atmosphere without aseptic atmosphere have been developed and used for packaging sterilized liquid foods for distribution at room temperature or refrigerated distribution. According to the back-in-box catalog of Inch Cape Marketing Japan, the back-in box includes a filling port for aseptically filling the packaging material with the liquid food, and the filling port is
It has a first membrane completely sealed on the outside for introducing the liquid food into the packaging material, and a second membrane partially sealed on the side for introducing the liquid food into the packaging material through the filling port. To fill and seal the packaging material with liquid food, using a back-in-box filling machine, connect a filling valve to the filling port, first sterilize the first outer membrane surface with steam, The filling valve is introduced into the filling port through the first membrane. Next, the liquid food that has been heat-sterilized in advance is filled into the packaging material through the gap between the partially sealed second membranes through a filling valve. After the filling is completed, when the filling valve is pulled out of the filling port, the second film is completely sealed, and when the filling valve is separated from the filling port, the filling port is subjected to steam flushing, so that the liquid food can be removed in the atmosphere. A method of hermetically packaging a packaging material in a sterilized state is disclosed.

[0003] Most of the liquid foods to be filled in the packaging material must be liquid. The reason is that, as the liquid food is filled into the packaging material from the partially sealed gap of the second membrane, the liquid material is only intended to be filled in other packaging materials, so that the solid This is because if the object is filled, it may cause clogging. Therefore,
Even if it contains solids, it only contains fine solids such as minced meat and deformable solids such as strawberry jam, and filling packaging materials with sterilized fluid foods containing large solids Not at all intended. Therefore, a method for producing a soup or a stew containing a large solid food material of a sterilization type for distribution at room temperature or refrigerated is understood and studied as a method completely different from the liquid food of the sterilization type.

Conventionally, as a method for producing a soup or stew containing such a large solid food material, a solid food material and a liquid soup or sauce are separately sterilized by heating at a high temperature and a high pressure, and then sterilized under an aseptic atmosphere (aseptically). (See JP-A-62-275672, JP-A-6-237).
No. 745) is known. In this way, the method of packaging the solid food and the liquid food separately after heat sterilizing them separately is compared to the method in which the solid food and the liquid food are housed together in the container together and heat sterilized. It has the advantage of excellent quality.

[0005]

However, in the conventional method, in order to pack together a solid food material and a liquid food material that have been separately heat-sterilized, a packaged material that has been sterilized in advance is used in a sterile room. The only known method is to carry out the treatment under a sterile atmosphere such as a sterile box. In order to make such an aseptic atmosphere, not only facilities and the like are required, but also it is necessary to sterilize even the outer surface of the packaging material brought into the aseptic atmosphere, and there is a disadvantage that the manufacturing process becomes complicated.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a sterilizing method which includes a solid food material which is capable of sufficiently performing the manufacturing process even in an atmosphere which is not a sterile atmosphere, prevents the ratio of a plurality of ingredients and the variation between ingredients and sauces, and has excellent quality. It is an object of the present invention to provide a production method capable of easily obtaining a liquid food in a short time.

[0007]

According to the present invention, a packaging material having a filling port capable of aseptically filling a liquid food material in the atmosphere is filled with a solid food material, sealed, and then packed with the solid food material. Heating the inside so that it is at least sterilized
(A), in the packaging material sterilized in the step (a),
From the filling port, a step (b) of aseptically filling a sterilized liquid food material containing substantially no solid content, and after the step (b) is completed, a step (c) of sealing the filling port A method for producing a sterilized fluid food containing a solid food is provided.

[0008]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The sterilized liquid food produced in the present invention is a sterilized liquid food which is packaged in a sterilized state at room temperature or refrigerated. Examples of such liquid foods include soups such as various cream soups and various potage soups including vegetables, meat, fish and shellfish, and mixtures thereof; stews such as beef stew, fricassee, curry, and the like. Solid ingredients such as vegetables, meat, fish and shellfish, which are liquid food ingredients, and liquid ingredients, which are soups or sauces, are prepared in advance. Cooking can be performed by a usual method according to the type, or solid food and liquid food may be separately cooked. When the solid food and the liquid ordinary food are cooked in a mixed state by an ordinary method, it is necessary to separate each of them when the solid food and the liquid food are supplied to the production method of the present invention. At this time, the separated solid food material may contain some liquid food material that cannot be completely separated.

In the production method of the present invention, first, a solid food is filled in a packaging material having a filling port capable of aseptically filling a liquid material in the atmosphere, sealed, and then heat-sterilized (a). As the packaging material, a material having a structure having a filling port capable of aseptically filling a liquid food material even in the air, which is usually used for sterilization packaging of a sterilized liquid food containing no solid food material, can be used. What has heat resistance which can endure the heat of the above is preferred. Therefore, packaging materials manufactured from materials such as various heat-resistant resins and metal foils can be used. Also,
Normal aseptic filling packaging material, the inside of which is sterilized by γ-ray sterilization is used, but in the present invention, sterilization by heating is performed as an essential configuration after filling the solid food material described later, so that it is not necessarily in advance. The interior need not be sterile.

In the present invention, the filling machine for each foodstuff and the entire packaging material are not kept in an aseptic atmosphere, but also in the air,
In order to fill the packaging material while maintaining the sterilized state of the liquid food material that has been sterilized in advance described below, the packaging material needs to have a filling port that can be aseptically filled even in the atmosphere. As the filling port having such a structure, the inside and the outside of the packaging material are shut off, and the filling can be performed while maintaining a sterilized state of a liquid food material previously sterilized by each food filling machine or the like. Any structure is acceptable. For example, a filling port having the structure shown in FIG. 1 used for a back-in-box packaging material can be used. In FIG. 1, 1 is a filling port, 2 is a completely sealed first membrane for completely shutting off the outside air and the inside of the filling port and the inside of the packaging material, and 3 is a gap provided for introducing a liquid food material into the packaging material. 2 shows a partially sealed second membrane, respectively .

In order to fill the packaging material with a solid foodstuff,
Preferably, one side of the packaging material is filled in an open state. When sealing the packaging material after filling,
It is preferable to reduce the pressure inside the packaging material. This depressurization can be performed using a normal vacuum decompressor, preferably in a state close to vacuum so that the air layer between the solid food and the inner surface of the packaging material, and between the solid foods is as small as possible. Is preferred. Sealing can be performed by a known method such as heat sealing while maintaining the reduced pressure.
That is, the filling of the solid food is preferably performed from an opening other than the filling port, and the opening can be sealed by closing the opening.

Heat sterilization after the sealing can be performed, for example, by heating the entire packaging material with hot water or the like according to a normal retort sterilization method. The condition of this heat sterilization may be any condition as long as at least the inside of the packaging material filled with the solid food material is sterilized, and may be appropriately selected depending on the type and size of the solid food material, the reduced pressure state, the size of the packaging material, and the like. Can be. At this time, since the solid food and the remaining air are present in the packaging material and, in some cases, liquid food such as a seasoning liquid, the solid food and all the liquid food are heat sterilized together. In addition, heat sterilization time and the like can be remarkably shortened, which is very advantageous in terms of process and energy. In addition, since the inside of the packaging material is also sterilized at the same time, it is not necessary to use the inside of the packaging material which has been previously sterilized with γ-rays or the like.

In the production method of the present invention, the following step (a)
And (b) aseptically filling the sterilized packaging material with the sterilized liquid food material substantially free of solids from the filling port.

The sterilized liquid food material substantially free of solids is a normal liquid soup or a sterilized material such as a sauce, which can be filled into the packaging material through the filling port, and can be used to prevent clogging or the like. If there is no fear, it means that fine solids or deformable solids may be contained. The liquid food can be sterilized by ordinary direct heat sterilization, but heat exchange sterilization is preferable in order to maintain the quality of the liquid food such as color and aroma. Sterilization conditions can be appropriately selected depending on the type and amount of the liquid food material.

In order to aseptically fill the liquid foodstuff into the bag sterilized in step (a) from the filling port, a known back-in-box aseptic filling machine or the like or a filling machine having a similar structure is used. Can be done. That is, by using the aseptic filling structure at the filling port, the filling can be performed using a filling machine that can fill the liquid food into the packaging material in an aseptic state even when the packaging material is opened to the atmosphere.

In the production method of the present invention, a desired sterilized fluid food can be obtained by performing the step (c) of sealing the filling port after the step (b) is completed. The sealing in the step (c) may be a method of shutting off the air inside and outside the packaging material, and can be performed by, for example, a normal heat seal or the like.

[0017]

According to the production method of the present invention, since a packaging material having a structure capable of aseptically filling a liquid food material even in the air is adopted as a container, it is not necessary to set the container in a sterile atmosphere such as a sterile room or a sterile box. Sterilized liquid food can be easily obtained, and since the solid food and the liquid food are separately sterilized and separately filled in the packaging material, the sterilization is performed rather than mixing the solid food and the liquid food and then sterilizing. The time can be greatly reduced, and the quality of the obtained liquid food can be maintained. In addition, it is easy to control the filling ratio between the solid food and the liquid food to a desired ratio. Therefore, it is extremely useful as a method for producing sterilized soups and stews that are distributed at room temperature or refrigerated.

[0018]

The present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the following Examples and Comparative Examples, but the present invention is not limited thereto. Example 1 180 g of beef belly diced to 2 cm on a side, 180 g of potatoes randomly cut to 2 to 3 cm on a side, 2 to 2 sides
180 g of ginseng chopped to 3 cm and 90 g of burdock chopped to 1 × 2 cm were boiled with hot water for 1 minute to prepare a solid food material. On the other hand, a curry sauce was separately cooked by a known method to prepare a liquid food material. The obtained solid ingredients,
After filling one side of the packaging material provided with a filling port (see FIG. 1) through an open port, the inside of the packaging material is depressurized using a vacuum decompression device, and then the opened side is sealed using a heat sealing device. Sealed. Next, the packaged product filled with the solid food and sealed under reduced pressure was retorted with hot water at 121 ° C. The sterilization time required 29 minutes when the sterilization state of the solid food material in the packaging material at the center temperature of the food reached F ₀ value = 12. Separately, a back-in-box aseptic filling machine (product) was prepared by heat-sterilizing (KID's cooker (manufactured by Kikkoman Co., Ltd.) and holding at 128.9 ° C. for 2 minutes (F ₀ value = 12)). Name `` StarAsept '' BIB type, Tetra
Pak Co., Ltd.), and a filling valve of an aseptic filling machine was connected to the filling port of the packaging material after sterilizing the solid food material in the atmosphere. Next, the liquid food material 2730 is supplied from the aseptic filler.
g was filled in the packaging material so that the liquid food material did not come into contact with the atmosphere. After the filling was completed, when the filling valve was removed from the filling port, the filling valve was removed while completely sealing the filling port using a heat sealing device to obtain curry stew as a solid food-containing fluid food. The F ₀ value of the curry stew obtained was 1
It was 2. FIG. 2 is an explanatory schematic diagram of the above-mentioned liquid food production process. In filling the liquid food into the packaging material, the solid food was cooled to 45 ° C at a cooling temperature of 45 ° C after the retort sterilization, and the required time was 1 minute 30 minutes.
Seconds.

The curry stew obtained is put in boiling water for 10 minutes.
After boiling for 25 minutes, the following points were evaluated by a panel of 25 persons. Table 1 shows the average value of each result and the total average value of the curry sauce and each solid food material. (1) The score of the curry sauce before sterilization prepared as described above was set to 0, and the curry sauce of the obtained curry stew was divided into 10 steps of 0.2 points from 0 to -2 points (-2: Obviously watery, -1: slightly watery),
Hotness (-2: obviously not hot, -1: slightly hot), rich (-2: clear bad, -1: slightly bad),
Flavor (-2: apparently bad, -1: somewhat poor), aroma (-2: apparently bad, -1: somewhat poor) and color (appearance) (-2: apparently dark, -1: somewhat dark) In addition, overall (-2: obviously bad, -1: somewhat bad) was evaluated. (2) The hardness and elasticity of the solid food were relatively evaluated by comparing the hardness and elasticity of each solid food of the curry stew prepared in Comparative Example 1 described later. In the evaluation, the solid food material of Comparative Example 1 was evaluated at 3 points, and evaluated at 1 to 5 points. Regarding the hardness, potatoes, carrots and burdock were evaluated with higher scores for harder ones, and higher scores for beef with more crunchiness. The elastic force was evaluated by increasing the score as the elastic force increased.

Comparative Example 1 The solid food prepared in Example 1 (total amount: 630 g) and 2370 g of curry sauce were filled in a retort sterilizing pouch and sealed. Subsequently, the mixture was retorted in hot water at 121 ° C. This retort sterilization was performed while rotating the pouch at 10 r / m in order to increase the efficiency of heat transfer to the pouch. After the start of retort sterilization, the temperature of the food center is F ₀ = 12.
The time required to reach was 70 minutes. After the obtained curry stew was boiled in boiling water for 10 minutes, a panel test was performed in the same manner as in Example 1. Table 1 shows the results.

[0021]

[Table 1]

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing a structural example of a filling port in a back-in-box packaging material.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory schematic view showing a process of manufacturing a liquid food in Example 1.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1: filling port 2: first membrane 3: second membrane

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Fields surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) A23L 3/00-3/023 A23L 1/00-1/01 A23L 1/36 A23L 1/48

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A solid foodstuff is filled in a packaging material having a filling port capable of aseptically filling a liquid foodstuff in the atmosphere, and after sealing,
A step (a) of heating so that the inside of the packaging material filled with the solid food material is at least sterilized, and in the packaging material sterilized in the step (a), the solid content is substantially contained from the filling port. A method for producing a sterilized fluid food containing a solid food, comprising: a step (b) of aseptically filling a liquid food material that has not been sterilized; and a step (c) of sealing the filling port after the step (b).