Fruit and grape juices in bulk containers Pt4
According to the label, this drum used to contain aseptic juice.
Here is a brief description of aseptic juice preparation method, using the example of orange juice.
Orange juice is sold as a frozen concentrate, nonpasteurized, as well as juice, which was subjected to various degrees of pasteurization process, involves heating the product to the temperatures just below boiling.
This, of course, destroys or drives off the juice flavor ingredients.
Nonpasteurized juice must be refrigerated and marketed relatively rapidly.
Pasteurized juices have longer shelf life.
Therefore, extending a shelf life of a packaged juice is a desirable goal of merchants and producers alike.
Prior to the development of aseptic juice preparation processes, products, which have any reasonable shelf life without refrigeration did not have good enough flavour to gain consumer acceptance. Many were sold under the labels of "orange drinks".
Aseptic juice preparation process involves mixing of pasteurized juice with natural juice flavours, which have been extracted by adding alcohol and then distilling (evaporating) the mixture.
This process ensures that the mixture stays aseptic, which means it can have a reasonable shelf life with only mild refrigeration, as is the case on the openly refrigerated supermarket shelves, and yet it has a richer flavour than ordinary pasteurized juice.
The resulting product can be legally sold under the label of orange juice, and not simply some "orange drink", since no ingredients are added to it during processing, which are not naturally present in fresh oranges.
According to the label on that drum, it had to be stored at -18 degrees Celcius or below.
Obviously, at such storage temperatures spoilage is not a problem. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that at this point no preservatives have been added to the juice concentrate.
It is not clear, though, whether the contents would freeze solid at such temperatures. If juice freezes into solid ice, then the drum would rupture.
However, maybe with such a high sugar content the juice would not freeze at -18 degrees?
I read in a book about war, that precautions had to be taken in the field conditions to prevent rupture of drums, if water freezes inside them.
Obviously, if your drinking water is in that drum, you cannot simply pour it out for the night. And apparently a way to prevent that is to position a stick vertically inside a drum. This way the volume expansion, which takes place when ice forms, is apparently forced along the direction of a stick and the drum is thus saved from rupture.
According to the label, this drum used to contain some sort of acidified fruit puree.
There are two main reasons for acidification of fruit juices, fruit purees and beverages:
on one hand a lower Ph (acidic environment) inhibits growth of molds and bacteria and thus prolongs shelf life.
Another reason has to do with a perception that acidified beverages exhibit superior taste and sensory characteristics, especially those, which incorporate high intensity sweeteners, like acesulfame potassium, Aspartame, Splenda and others.
Such drinks tend to exhibit more sucrose-like taste, in other words they apparently taste to some people as if containing natural sugar.
The acidulant (acidifying agent) is added in quantities required to maintain Ph between 3 and 4, which is quite acidic.
As a comparison Ph of blood is just over 7.3
The acidifying agent can be any suitable acid, such as phosphoric acid. However, apparently due to a higher level of consumer awareness nowadays, malic acid and citric acid are presently preferred as acidulants.
Phosphoric acid is nevertheless added to soft drinks.
An alkali metal salt of an organic acid are also used in some formulations. The usual amounts are 0.1-0.3 percent by weight.
The amount of sweeteners used in beverages vary. Here are some standard numbers in ppm (parts per million): tea: 250-350, strawberry: 300-400, cranberry: 350-450
The higher concentration of sweetener in cranberry drinks is apparently the result of a higher natural acid content in cranberry, which the producers of cranberry drinks are trying to offset with the extra amount of sweeteners.
Here is a typical method of preparing commercial fruit beverages:
The beverage is prepared by mixing the juice concentrate, possibly using a variety of different fruit juices, or several types of the same fruit, like white and red grapefruits, or white and red grapes.
Flavors, acid and water are then added and the mixture is heated to 180 degrees F (about 20 percent under the boiling temperature)
This type of heat processing is a standard hot treatment process common in juice and tea beverages. It is referred to in beverage industry as "hot fill".
Sweeteners are added after the "hot fill" to eliminate possible breakdown of aspartame during the heating process.
An average juice content in a fruit beverage is about 10 percent.
Juice concentrate is normally used in preparation of such beverages. It is, obviously, cheaper to transport, and it also has a longer shelf life, with high concentration of naturally-occurring sucrose serving as a natural preservative.
Juice manufacturers have to follow appropriate regulations with regards to the juice content in fruit beverages. A drink cannot legally be sold under a name that identifies a specific fruit, if there is less than a certain percentage of juice of that fruit used in that drink's preparation.
Here is a typical composition of a fruit drink (all numbers in percentages):
"Juice A" concentrate - 1.5
"Juice B" concentrate - 1.0
"Juice C" concentrate - 0.8
Flavour (possibly artificial) - 1.10
Malic acid (acidulant) up to 0.26
Citric acid (acidulant) up to 0.26
Phosphoric acid (acidulant) may also be used, however, very unlikely in fruit drinks nowadays, but still used in some soft drinks
Sodium citrate up to 0.25
Aspartame 0.016-0.05
Acesulfame potassium - up to 0.016
Water - balance to 100%
And, obviously, if fluoridated water is used in preparation of such beverages, then we also have to add fluoride compounds to the aforementioned constituent parts.
Beverage industry uses several taste parameters to rate their products. And even though they appear to be subjective, they nevertheless can give a rather accurate formal description of taste, as well as taste categorization:
Fruit / Tea taste - a subjective parameter, which is used to rate how close is the taste of a drink to that of a natural juice or natural tea.
Sweetness - this is the basic taste parameter associated with sucrose in water.
Chemical taste - another subjective parameter which describes whether a beverage has "medicinal", "antiseptic" or some other "chemical taste".
Sour - the basic taste characteristic associated with citric acid in water. A specific number is assigned for every concentration of acid in the "controlled solution" and the taste of a beverage is compared to that.
Astringency - a subjective parameter, which reflect a combination of sensations, which are resembling "dry mouth", "coating", "furry tongue" and "puckering".
Blendedness - measure of how well actual flavors match the label and whether the drink has any, so-called, "off-taste".
A score of 15 for blendedness indicates well balanced taste and no off-taste.
Concentrated apple juice from China
It is emphasized on this can of Mango juice that it is not from concentrate. However, if it was delivered over several thousand kilometers, then it was much more expensive, especially considering the fact that it likely had to be transported in refrigerated halls of cargo ships.
But even though expensive to deliver to the final consumer, this product will not have to be reconstituted with local water, which is fluoridated in over 60 percent of US municipalities.
Continue...Pt5
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Pictures of industrial accident (propane explosion)