Upgraded 'Microfilm' confectionery cooker
Date: 28 October 2004
Greater production flexibility, easier operation
The Baker Perkins Microfilm confectionery cooker is being upgraded to provide even more production flexibility and ease of operation. These cookers are regarded as the industry standard for sugar and sugar-free high boiled and hard candies, including those with the addition of milk and cream.
The combination of a Baker Perkins Microfilm cooker and depositor dominates the deposited hard candy sector, and there are more than 400 successful installations around the world.
Compared with traditional methods, the Microfilm delivers greater product variety, superior quality and higher operational efficiency. These advantages are seeing them increasingly used for low boilings such as caramels, toffees, chews and fudges, high-solids jellies, and gums - as well as hard candy - in both depositing and non-depositing applications.
PLC control is now standard with touch-sensitive HMI screens for operator control. Features include on-screen trending of process parameters that helps operators to improve real-time process control, and provides information for trouble-shooting and longer-term process development. Recipe control and system alarm management are also included.
Other design improvements include excellent visibility of product at the point of discharge, a hygienic stainless steel frame, and a special discharge pump designed by Baker Perkins for efficient handling of high-sugar syrups.
In addition, the needs of the plant engineer have been carefully considered, with many design improvements that make routine maintenance simpler and quicker.
The 'Microfilm' is the only cooker on the market that applies a continuous vacuum directly onto a thin, swept film during cooking. This results in extremely rapid cooking with minimum process inversion.
The cooker has hinged blades, which sweep the inner surface of the tube. The sugar is spread in a very thin film, and moved through the cooking tube by a combination of gravity and the design of the hinged blades.
Baker Perkins depositing lines incorporating a Microfilm cooker offer a unique high-output capability of up to 1400kg.hour from a single cooker and a single depositing head. This is achieved by the largest depositors in the range with a width of 1.3metres, and provides high-quality candies with one or two colours, soft centres, layers and stripes.
These flexible units, with outputs from 120kg/hour, are available with a wide choice of options, and systems are specified to match individual requirements.
One key option is the incorporation of a modular vacuum evaporator which allows the use of a range of Polyols such as Isomalt, a low calorie sweetener, as a replacement for sugar in depositing operations. The vacuum evaporator is necessary to lower the temperature of Isomalt - which has a higher boiling point than sugar - and achieve a viscosity suitable for depositing.
Another option allows existing cooking plant to be used to produce high milk content deposited candy, with only a small capital outlay.
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