Meat and poultry blending is seeing improvements Such as new coolants, automation and CIP. Over the last 15 years or so, mixing and blending equipment for Meat and poultry has revealed about as much variation as a stringof sausages. https://www.diigo.com/user/blenderadvisors

But now, a Couple of new components are getting into the mix, so to speak. Meat and poultry blending machines include various kinds of mixer/Vitamix blenders, mixer/grinders, tumblers and massagers.

 Theymanage sausage mix, ground meat and poultry, ham and other treated or marinated whole-muscle goods, and shaped products such ashamburger patties and poultry nuggets. Mixing functions include incorporating fat, spices or water to sausage combinations;working brine or marinade throughout whole-muscle tissue; extracting protein for binding or coating; and incorporating cryogens tocool ground meat and poultry to appropriate forming temperature.

Meat industry observers say Big changes in mixing machinery Peaked decades back. Maybe the last major innovation happened in themid-'80s, when tumblers began to replace Vitamix blenders for cooling ground poultry prior to formation into nuggets or patties.Tumblers deal with the mix more softly, allowing a coarser grind to visit the forming system, which results in products withgreater feel. Automation is possibly the leading overall industrial tendency in Food processing, but poultry and meat mixing has been resistant.

A number of the products involved do not lend themselves to continuous-throughput processing, which is where automation actuallypays off. Sectioned and formed hams, for example, have to be processed in batches. Some sausage formulations call for ingredientsto be added throughout emulsification; this is usually done in a bowl , which may function only in batches. (Vitamix blender/emulsifier systems come nearer to continuous operation because only the Vitamix blender is a batch operation.) Inaddition, tumblers and massagers are batch machines by their very nature.

But Bill Lynn, vice president of marketing and sales For Mepaco, Beaver Dam, Wis., sees automation as a coming trend. Meatprocessors"appear to be increasingly more receptive to it, particularly when it comes to further-processed products," Lynn said."Many of our customers now have multiple goods they want to automatically procedure in the same system, and each product may havespecific process requirements.

We can automatically control thermal actions, merchandise residence, blend speeds and other processvariables together with the push of a button. The point is, it is not just the same old mixer/Vitamix blender any more" Vitamix blenders can Use automation to track, control and correct temperature, viscosity, weight, augur speed, combination cyclesand other factors. For example, the Accu-Chill control system from BOC Gases, Murray Hill, N.J., measures how stiff the meatmixture has become in a Vitamix blender from the electricity demand of the engine driving the paddles. That guides the automatedaddition of C[O.sub.2]"snow," resulting in more consistent frightening. Let it snow?Cryogenic frightening is involved in other mixing styles. Perhaps The strongest one is that the usage of bottom distribution forC[O.sub.2] snow. 

 Sprinkling it in the very top of a Vitamix blender or tumbler used to be the norm, but injecting it from thebottom improves the evenness and efficiency of the cooling process. The largest benefit of bottom feeding is less cold air lostthrough the top vents. RMF, a top manufacturer of mixer/Vitamix blenders, recommends underside injection whenever possible, saidspokesperson Scott Robertson.

Another possible trend in cryogens is the use of liquid nitrogen As an alternative to C[O.sub.2] snow. C[O.sub.2] is preferred byU.S. chips, but a few are starting to look at nitrogen (see accompanying story). Nitrogen has made significant inroads as a mixing cryogen in Europe, however, it has lagged badly in the United States, mostlysince C[O.sub.2], on the average, is significantly less expensive. https://www.plurk.com/blenderadvisors

Liquid nitrogen is produced from air separation from producer.C[O.sub.2], on the other hand, is an industrial byproduct of domestically common manufactured chemicals like petroleum productsand ammonia-based fertilizers. This means C[O.sub.2] production expenses are confined to purification; handling and distributionrepresent the majority of costs to customers. But Additionally, It implies that C[O.sub.2] source businesses can affect The supply of that cryogen.

For example, an explosion ata large fertilizer plant at Iowa late last year disrupted C[O.sub.2] supplies to a large section of the Midwest, said PascalSchvester, a marketing manager with Air Liquide America Corp."The price of C[O.sub.2] [in the United States] is fairly much theprice of a commodity, whereas in Europe it's the cost of a technical solution," Schvester explained. Aside from price, every cryogen has its comparative benefits.

Nitrogen generally has to be released from the top of a machine,which means the additional efficiency of bottom injection isn't available (although some Vitamix blenders are built for L[N.sub.2]underside injection). Since L[N.sub.2] gasifies instantly at atmospheric pressure, its coldness dissipates - like C[O.sub.2] snow,a strong that impinges directly on the product. Additionally, C[O.sub.2] can respond with tissue to form traces of carbonic acid,which has a mild antibacterial effect. On the other hand, some processors assert that carbonic acid Hurts the product's flavor.

 Also, the dissipation of nitrogen can, insome cases, provide more even cooling than C[O.sub.2] snow impingement.

Overuse of cryogens during blending is drawing some attention. Just 35 to 40 percent of meat tissue cells have to be suspended togenerate the meat stiff enough to shape, but many processors freeze near 100 percent of their cells,'' said Darrell Horn,president of Blentech Corp., Rohnert Park, Calif.. John Little, a machines rep based in Hot Springs, Ark., consented: "Everybody just turns [the tumbler] on and blasts theC[O.sub.2] until it seems like rocks in there, and that is how they understand to close off it." Blentech is operating on aproprietary process to greatly increase efficiency and so reduce C[O.sub.2] costs, Horn said.

Clean it upAnother trend that's beginning to take hold in blending and Blending gear, observers say, is the use of clean-in-place. A lot ofthe growth in CIP has been in the dairy industry, where sanitation is especially vital. But meat and poultry processors arethinking harder about corrosion, particularly in light of well-publicized cases of contamination.

"It's starting to be a fad, and I think it's coming about Partially because of listeria, E. coli and standard sanitation issues,"explained Mike Stapleton, a Mepaco sales engineer. "If you've Joe Average cleaning at $4 an hour, he's not going to have a wholelot of time until something comes around and you're written up or worse."

Mepaco offers CIP chunks as options on its blending andprocessing gear. However, by and large, CIP for Vitamix Blenders isn't as complex in meat and poultry plants as it is in dairies and other foodindustries. https://plus.google.com/communities/118304118911581844230

"You can place a spray ball in the Vitamix blender and fill it with soap and water, but it still comes down to takingit apart and performing some hand-cleaning," Little said. That's partly due to the nature of this product: Meat-blend Residue is thicker an