Food – Sauces and Dressings

The rheology of sauces and dressings can be monitored by installing RheoStream^® downstream of mixing and cooking, where it will provide a feed-back to secure a consistent quality of the products.

A thousand-island dressing has to be thick and rich in the right way. And ketchup has to be annoying in just the right way, when you try to get it out of the bottle…

Most viscous liquid food products are thickened by addition of stabilizers and/or by cooking. In large scale continuous operations, it is necessary to take out samples, often manually, and check the consistency in an off-line device. If the rheology is trending toward getting out of the specification, the process may be adjusted manually, e.g. by changing dose of stabilizer, by changing homogenizer speed or cooking conditions.

RheoStream^® can measure the viscosity profile and apparent yield stress. It is recommended to install RheoStream shortly downstream from the mixing or cooking operation that has the primary impact on final product rheology.

If samples are today taken further downstream (or at finished product), the plant may not initially have clear information about the specification limits at exactly this position. It may be necessary to conduct a small study of how the viscosity profile at this point correlates to final product quality (after rest).

Once the limits at the point of measurement are set, RheoStream will continuously monitor if the process is stable, or if it is approaching an upper or lower limit. The operator may react on an alarm and decide on how to interfere in the process – or RheoStream may be included in a closed loop regulation system and continuously adjust process settings to keep the product rheology on track at all times.