DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF AN AUTOMATED BATCH PASTEURIZER

The main problems faced by small-scale liquid foods processors in developing countries, Uganda in particular include high business start-up costs and lack of appropriately sized equipment. Therefore, the aim of this study was to design, construct and evaluate a small scale automated pasteurizer; an important equipment in liquid foods industry. The performance of the pasteurizer was tested using freshly prepared fruit juice at a pasteurization temperature of 90°C and holding time of 10 min. The batch pasteurizer had a come-up time of 37 and 78 min from a cold jacket and from a hot jacket respectively, and an output of 92-194 L/hr. The kinetics study of pasteurization showed a decimal reduction time (of 10 min and with the z value of 10°C the batch lethality was 0.062 min. The pasteurizer portrayed significantly high performance and can therefore be recommended for use by the small-scale liquid food processors.