The Cricketfilter’s® role in cocoa butter filtration
The cost of living around the world has been rising, putting pressure on everyone to cut costs, from households to businesses.
And the food processing industry is not immune, with factories that use cocoa butter in their filtration processes looking to improve processing times and reduce their costs and carbon footprint.
But there is an answer to these issues, and that answer is the Cricketfilter®.
What is cocoa butter?
Before we get into the filtration process, first we need to look at what cocoa butter is.
Cocoa butter is the primary ingredient in a wide range of products. And while it plays an essential role in giving chocolate that smooth, rich texture that we all love, there is more to it than that. It’s also in products like skin cream, hair conditioner, moisturiser and lip balm.
How cocoa butter is produced.
Before cocoa butter products reach consumers, cocoa beans are split open to expose the seeds before being fermented until they turn brown (and release the classic cocoa flavour).
Following fermentation, the beans are dried, cleaned and packed before being:
- De-shelled
- Crushed
- Roasted
- Ground
All of which result in producing cocoa mass, which is then pressed to produce cocoa butter.
The Cricketfilter® filtration process in detail.
The Cricketfilter® is a stainless steel automated filtration system ideally suited to cocoa filtration. And the reason for this is because the filter cloths are designed and developed to meet the specific requirements of cocoa butter filtration.
Following the de-shelling, crushing, roasting and grinding stage, the cocoa butter typically still contains between 0.2 – 0.5% of cocoa powder, which the Cricketfilter® can remove.
During the filtration process, unfiltered cocoa butter is pumped into the Cricketfilter® pressure vessel and pressed through the system until only the solids remain on the filter cloths. The end result is the most refined quality cocoa butter possible, free from solids and contaminants. And because of the self-cleaning stage, maintenance time is reduced. The upside of this is more production time, which allows you to filter more cocoa butter and increase your stock output.
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The benefits of using Cricketfilter® in cocoa butter filtration.
For over a decade, more and more cocoa butter producers have chosen the Cricketfilter® as their filter of choice.
Why?
Because it offers several advantages during production compared to competing systems, including quick and easy sedimentation during the filtration process. And as one Cricketfilter® takes on the role of several standard centrifuges, it is also an investment that can save your organisation a significant amount of money.
But that’s not all…
OTHER BENEFITS OF THE CRICKETFILTER® INCLUDE:
• Up to 40% larger filtration area than traditional pulse tube filter systems
• Large filtration area within a small footprint
• Hermetically closed system and can be fully automated
• Suitable for direct cloth filtration or precoat/body-aid filtration
• High filtrate quality
• Low maintenance
The Cricketfilter® is also simple to clean as it uses air or gas pulses to clean the elements section by section without requiring a vibrator.
In conclusion
By installing the Cricketfilter®, cocoa butter plants can improve the quality of their end product. And with the system’s ability to self-clean, downtime is reduced, which increases the time for more daily production.
The Cricketfilter® also needs very little maintenance. And this is borne out in plants that have had this system installed for over 20-years and have not required any significant or costly improvements or repairs to keep the system running efficiently and effectively.
How Amafilter can help
If your system is causing you problems during the filtration of gelatine, resulting in unscheduled maintenance, slow turnaround times or a lower quality end product, contact Amafilter® to see how the CRICKETFILTER® can benefit your business.
