Energy & Power, Heating, Cooling & Drying

Freeze Concentration technology for alcoholic drink producers helps reduce costs

Phil Black - PII Editor 02/04/2014

127 1 minute read

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GEA Messo PT has simplified its Niro Freeze Concentration technology. This new generation Freeze Concentrators, called IceConä, reduces capital costs by around 50% and operational costs up to 40%. This reduction creates new opportunities making this high-quality process more widely accessible to beer, cider and wine producers across the globe. The reduced cost of the technology makes freeze concentration a realistic proposition for many alcoholic drink producers allowing them to provide the highest quality concentrates without affecting the taste, flavour or nutritional value of the final product.

For many beer, wine and cider manufacturers concentration of their products has advantages. Freeze concentration converts part of the water of aqueous solutions into pure ice crystals. In alcoholic beverage production, a complete separation of these ice crystals results in specific removal of water at sub-zero temperatures. The result is unprecedented product quality.

Through freeze concentration, GEA Messo PT can concentrate alcoholic drinks to reduce their volume and increase their alcohol level up to 25%. Reasons for concentration can be e.g. saving on transportation costs, preservation of product, as a post mix concept, use as an ingredient, or as a base product (intermediate) for aperitifs.

Although freeze concentration has always been recognised as achieving the best result, with virtually no change in product taste when reconstituted, the cost of the process has put many alcoholic beverage producers off in favour of alternatives such as distillation. By reducing the cost of freeze concentration, however, GEA Messo PT has made the technology much more accessible to a wide variety of producers.

As well as the product quality benefits, freeze concentration has other benefits for manufacturers. As the system works at sub-zero temperatures intermediate cleaning (CIP) is not required. The system can run continuously for weeks. This saves valuable production time and costs for cleaning agents.

“The lower price tag puts freeze technology into the hands of companies that found it attractive in the past, but could not justify the capital expenditure,” said Xavier Hollander of GEA Messo PT.

The new IceConä technology brings high-quality freeze concentration within the reach of drinks manufacturers helping them to satisfy the demands of an increasingly discerning public.