JPH0195262A - Manufacture of colored ice lump - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To obtain a hard and large pigmented lump of ice without irregular coloration and with luster intrinsic to ice by supplying pigmented water to the upper portion of the inner wall of an ice-making can being cooled to a specific temperature at a specific temperature and at the same time dripping a specific liquefied gas into the ice-chipping can. CONSTITUTION: Uniformly prepared pigmented water is filled into a pigmented water storage tank 3, is sprayed to the upper part of the inner wall of an ice- chipping can 1 being cooled to -5--20 deg.C from an outer side by an atomizer 4 and hence becomes a thin film and flows down toward a bottom part. The water is frozen during the process. In this case, when an outer brine temperature exceeds -5 deg.C, the water cannot be frozen until it flows down to the bottom part. When the temperature is lower than -20 deg.C, cooling is made unnecessarily, thus losing economy. Then, pigmented water being supplied by atomization forms a film-shaped ice layer similarly on the surface of the film-shaped pigmented ice layer. As the thickness of a lamination body increases gradually, a cooling operation due to brine 2 decreases. However, by dripping liquefied nitrogen or liquefied air into the ice-chipping can 1 as a refrigerant 5a for cooling, a large pigmented lump of ice can be obtained.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Industrial application field] The present invention can be used for various purposes in place of commercially available ice cubes, and can also add elegance to the ice blocks or exhibit unique effects. This invention relates to a method for producing hard colored ice cubes with no uneven color.

[Conventional technology]

Conventional colored ice includes frozen desserts such as popsicles and granular ice mixed in ice cream.

Popsicles are made by adding syrup or coloring to water, placing it in a container with a diameter of about 2 mm and a length of about 12 cm, and freezing it by external cooling. Furthermore, the granular colored water is obtained by dropping water colored by adding a pigment into liquefied nitrogen and freezing it instantly, and there is no uneven color in either case.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

However, the water in the former is soft and does not have the characteristic luster that ice has, while the latter is hard, but due to its manufacturing method, it can only be as large as five shoehorns at most.

General commercially available 30x60x120oaPi! In order to produce colored ice cubes the size of 300 degrees Celsius, the colored water is put into an ice making can according to the normal ice making process, and the colored ice cubes are gradually extracted by external cooling with brine at about -10℃. As the crystals grow, the pigment segregates during the freezing process, making it impossible to obtain large blocks of ice that are uniformly colored throughout.Currently, no method has been found to produce ice blocks that are uniformly colored.

The inventors of the present invention have conducted extensive research on how to make ice cubes that are uniformly colored throughout, and found that by combining indirect cooling from the outside with direct cooling using liquefied nitrogen or liquefied air, ice cubes with relatively uniform color can be produced. I discovered that I can get it.

The present invention was made based on the above-mentioned discovery, and has a unique luster that is uniformly colored, has a hardness of 1100N or more, and does not have the 6-shaped ice cubes found in commercially available ice cubes in the center. An object of the present invention is to provide a method that can easily produce ice cubes having the following properties.

[Means for solving problems]

The present invention has been made to achieve the above object, and its main purpose is to provide a method for producing colored ice cubes without uneven coloring, in which water uniformly colored by dissolving pigments, etc., is heated from outside. 5～
The method of producing colored ice blocks includes supplying at a predetermined rate to the upper part of the inner wall of an ice making machine cooled to -20°C, and dropping liquefied nitrogen or liquefied air into the iceberg at a predetermined rate.

[Effect]

Since the method for producing colored ice blocks according to the present invention has the above-mentioned structure, the supplied colored water comes into contact with ice making and freezes into a thin film, gradually increasing in thickness, and the freezing power due to external cooling is reduced. Even if it is insufficient, dripping liquefied nitrogen or liquefied air (
It is also cooled from the inside by the refrigerant (hereinafter referred to as refrigerant), so
The supplied colored water is further layered and frozen on the surface of the colored ice layer, and the colored water gradually freezes, without the growth of ice crystals, and therefore without the segregation of pigments, and evenly. Colored ice blocks are formed. In addition, since crystals do not gradually form from the outside toward the center as in the general ice-making method, there is no possibility of glass-shaped ice forming.

〔Example〕

FIG. 1 shows an example of an apparatus for carrying out the method of the present invention, and reference numeral 1 in the figure indicates ice making which is externally cooled by brine 2 at -5 to -20°C.

Almost at the upper center of this ice making 1, from the colored water storage tank 3,
An IIQ'M device 4 for spraying colored water on the upper part of the inner wall surface of the can is provided. Furthermore, a refrigerant supply pipe 5 is provided inside the ice making unit 1 to drip a refrigerant 5a.

Furthermore, the colored water that does not freeze and accumulates at the bottom of the ice making unit 1,
A suction pipe 7 is provided for drawing water through a pump 6 and collecting it in the colored water storage tank 3.

To make colored ice cubes using this device, colored water is first produced and filled into the colored water storage Wj3, but there is no restriction on the type of pigment used. When making ice cubes, ice cubes are selected depending on the beauty of the color when dissolved in water, and when serving as food, in addition to food coloring, - tea, oolong tea, cyan tea, etc. used. If the purpose is to make soil, crush, etc., 11 additional flavoring agents are added.

The prepared colored water is filled into a colored water storage tank 3 and kept at a low temperature within a range where it never freezes. If this temperature is high, the amount of refrigerant used increases, which is economically disadvantageous.

The filled and cooled colored water is sprayed from the outside by the atomizer 4.
It is sprayed onto the upper part of the inner wall of the ice making unit 1, which has been cooled to -20°C, and flows down to the bottom in the form of a thin film, but in the process it freezes in the form of a film. At this time, the outer brine Q FLY is
If the temperature exceeds -5℃, it will not freeze while flowing down to the bottom, and -2
If it is lower than 0°C, it will be unnecessarily cooled and economical efficiency will be lost.

It is extremely important that the blue water freezes while flowing down from the top of the inner wall to the bottom, and the subsequently sprayed blue water similarly forms a pattern of ice on the surface of the film-like colored ice layer. In this way, the colored ice layers are stacked and increase in thickness towards the center.

As the thickness of the laminate gradually increases, the cooling effect of the brine 2 decreases, but since the refrigerant 5a is dripped into the ice making 1, cooling is also effected by this, and the formation of the colored water layer continues. .

In this case, if there is too much cold tofu, the sprayed colored water will freeze immediately and air will be mixed in to form soft colored water1.If there is not enough refrigerant, the colored water will gradually cool down. As crystals grow, dye segregation occurs and color unevenness occurs. That is, it is extremely important to adjust the supply a of colored water and the supply amount of refrigerant.

Furthermore, if colored water that does not freeze remains at the bottom of ice making 1,
When this freezes, the pigment segregates and causes color unevenness, so it is continuously sucked in by a suction pipe 7 connected to a pump 6 and returned to the colored water storage tank 3, so that the colored water remains during ice making 1. Try not to.

The colored ice blocks made by this method are formed by laminating thin layers of colored ice, so they are uniformly colored inside and have the characteristic luster and transparency of ice, and are hard and hard.
Large colored ice cubes are obtained.

Example 1 Colored ice cubes were produced using the apparatus shown in FIG.

First, 200 J of water was poured into a colored water storage tank 3 with an internal volume of 300 J equipped with a stirrer, and a blue pigment (Hawaiian Blue) was added.
) was added thereto, and the mixture was cooled with stirring and maintained at 2°C.

In addition, an ice cube 1 measuring 30α in length, 60α in width, and 120α in depth was immersed in brine 2 at -10°C and fixed so as not to float up.

Next, while liquefied nitrogen 5a was dripped from the refrigerant supply pipe 5 at a rate of 1 J/min, colored water was sprayed from the sprayer 4 onto the upper part of the inner wall of the ice making unit 1 at a rate of 0.5 J/min. The sprayed colored water flows down the inner wall surface of the ice making unit 1 and most of it freezes by the time it reaches the bottom, but some of it remains unfrozen and accumulates at the bottom. This is continuously suctioned by the suction tube 7 to form a colored water layer 4! Returned to a3. At this time, it is necessary to gradually pull up the suction tube 7 as the colored water is piled up. In this way, 25 hours after the start of spraying the colored water, the entire interior of the ice making unit 1 was frozen.

The obtained ice block was colored uniformly blue throughout with heavy weight ff1135Ny, had the luster and transparency characteristic of ice, and was hard ice.

When this colored water is compared with popsicles, the following differences are observed.

11 cubic test pieces A and B were cut out from the colored ice cubes and popsicles and kept at -5°C.

When these colored ice block test piece A and popsicle test piece B were dropped from a height of 1 m on a concrete floor, test piece A was not damaged at all, and test piece B was broken into pieces.

In addition, when test pieces A and B were hidden on newspaper and the letters were looked at through ice, the letters on test piece A could be clearly read through the ice, whereas the letters on test piece B could not be read.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, the method for producing colored ice blocks according to the present invention can produce large, hard colored ice blocks that are uniform in color, have the unique luster of ice, and can therefore be used for parties and other purposes. Since a sculpture made of ordinary ice can be replaced with a sculpture colored in a desired color, its splendor is greatly enhanced. In addition, colored ice cubes made using food coloring agents, sweeteners, etc. can be crushed into frozen confections such as frappes and sorbets, and added to ice cream with appropriate particle size. You can. Additionally, if you add amber-colored ice to your whiskey mix, even if the ice melts, the color of the water won't change.

In this way, the colored ice cubes produced by the method of the present invention do not contain ice and can be used for the same purposes as regular ice cubes.
This is an excellent method for obtaining colored ice blocks that are used as ice for dipping into water, etc., and have properties that enhance each effect.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of an apparatus for carrying out the method of the present invention. 1...Ice making, 2...Brine, 3.
... Colored water storage tank, 4 ... Sprayer, 5 ...
... Refrigerant supply pipe, 5a ... Liquefied nitrogen or liquefied air (refrigerant), 6 ... Pump, 7 ...
Suction tube. Applicant: Tory Foods Industry Co., Ltd. Showa Denko Co., Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A method for producing colored ice cubes without uneven coloring, in which water uniformly colored by dissolving pigments, etc. is heated at -5 to -20°C from the outside.
A method for producing colored ice cubes, which comprises supplying colored ice cubes at a predetermined rate to the upper part of the inner wall of an ice-making can that is being cooled by water, and dropping liquefied nitrogen or liquefied air into the ice-making can at a predetermined rate.