Plate Freezer – Surface Chilling
Industry: Fruit and Vegetables (NAICS 3114) Meat (NAICS 3116)
NAICS process:
311411 Frozen Fruit and Vegetables
311612 Meat Processed from Carcasses
Process Brief: Food products are frozen by direct contact with a chilled surface
Energy source: Electricity/ some Natural Gas
Energy Intensity: 250-1,700 Btu/lb of product
Plate freezers are useful for freezing fish, pieces of poultry and cartons of vegetables. Direct contact cooling with a stainless steel plate chills the product at a faster rate than chilled air. The plates may be arranged vertically or horizontally. A typical installation has 15-20 sets of plates that are loaded and unloaded automatically. Vertical plate freezers have been specially designed to freeze fish at sea, creating blocks of frozen fish that are 20-30 pounds each. A major advantage of plate freezers is compact size and the ability to quickly freeze large products.
The heat transfer rate for plate freezers is much higher than chilled air freezers and comparable to fluidized bed freezers. A two-pound carton of vegetables can be frozen in 25 minutes and a 50-pound block of fish can be frozen in 75 minutes. One advantage of plate freezers is that temperature sensors on the plates can track the surface temperature of the product, which can aid process control.
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Source: http://www.fmctechnologies.com/upload/supercontactfreezer.pdf 3/2007;
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Source: http://www.jackstonefroster.com/vertical.html |
Source: Refriend at www.refriend.com |
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Manufacturers
FMC FoodTech Chicago
200 East Randolph
Chicago, IL 60601
Telephone: 312-861-6000
Web site: www.foodtechnologies.com
Jackstone Froster Ltd
Unit 31, Wilks Avenue
Questor Trading Estate
Hawley Road
Dartford DA1 1JS
ENGLAND
Telephone: +44 (0)1322 226418
Web site: www.jackstonefroster.com
Refriend Ice System
Add: No.44 Rengang Road,
Nantong City Jangsu Province,P.R.of China
Telephone: 86-513-83551291
Web site: www.refriend.com
Source: Overview GRI-03/0075; Overview Image from http://www.fmctechnologies.com/upload/supercontactfreezer.pdf 3/2007; other product images from manufacture’s web sites referenced and linked above.