HSSP Steam Sterilisation Process For Spices and Herbs from Hosokawa

Hosokawa Micron offers a compact, economical, environmentally safe process for the sterilisation of herbs and spices using steam as the sterilising medium. All pathogenic organisms are removed and the end products are practically germ free. The HSSP uses steam as the sterilising medium which has advantages over other methods such as ethylene oxide gas , which is now no longer allowed ,or the use of gamma rays, which are restricted by EC directives and require special labeling. HSSP treated products require no such special labels. It is a clean, safe process which uses the well proven Vrieco Nauta conical dryer with its superb mixing and homogenising characteristics.

HSSP operates with four main stages as follows:

Loading / Pre Drying

Products to be sterilised are first loaded into a Vrieco Nauta Conical dryer, which forms the heart of the process, for the first stage of low temperature pre-drying using a heated jacket and under a partial vacuum. Product degradation is minimised by these low temperatures and homogeneous mixing/heat treatment.

Sterilisation

After pre-drying steam ,supplied from a stand alone steam generator, is injected into the dryer for between 0.5 to 2 minutes where temperatures reach 105-140 deg C depending on the products to be treated.

Post-Drying

After sterilisation water is removed from the system by vacuum treatment which accelerates the water removal and uses low temperatures to improve product quality and maintain original flavours. All water including traces of ethereal oils are condensed in a separate condenser where the oils can be decanted and , if required, be remixed with the herb/spice later on if necessary.

Cooling

Cooling is the final stage and this takes about 10 minutes with the assistance of a cold water jacket on the Vrieco Nauta dryer unit.

The system is versatile and can be used on leaves, powders and other shapes. As it is a

batch process of between 500 and 1500 litres, the results are readily reproducible and have traceability with recipes programmed into the PLC.

HSSP is economical and the overall cycle time is under one hour. Cleaning is easy as only one vessel is contacting the product and this is readily cleaned with full CIP if required.

Test facilities are available at Hosokawa Micron and the system is backed by the worldwide resources of the Hosokawa Micron group.

For further information, please contact: Hosokawa Micron Ltd, Rivington Road, Whitehouse Industrial Estate, Runcorn, Cheshire, WA7 3DS. Tel: (01928) 755100 Fax: (01928) 714325

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