Instant Coffee Plant

Instant coffee process involves pretreatment, roasting, extraction, separation, aroma recovery, concentration, drying, and the agglomeration.

1) Coffee Beans Grading

Before processing the coffee beans purchased from the market, it is necessary to do screen separation, dedusting and then store the beans for roasting. After separation, coffee beans are separated into different grades; different roasting parameters work for different grades of beans, so we have the best roasting results.

2) Roasting

The second step involves roasting through either batch or continuous roasters. The degree of roast can be varied depending on the variety of coffee and blend composition, to develop the desired characteristics of flavor and aroma.

5) Concentration

Concentration has two purposes: increase the concentrate of coffee extract, so as to reduce the operating cost of spray drying.

6) Drying

There are two kinds of drying methods for Coffee: freeze drying and spray drying.

i) Freeze Drying
Freeze drying section consists of cooling, foaming and pre-freezing section, freezing section, granulation section, drying cart loading section and drying section, as well as fines return section. Freeze drying maximally keeps the coffee's flavor and color. The color, flavor, bulk density and solubility of the final product meet the market demands, so the price is much higher in the market.

But the investment and running cost of the freeze-drying plant are very high, and the fines return rate is also high; freeze-dryer is not a popular drying process.

ii) Spray Drying
With many years of research, we have developed special technologies and designs to meet different requirements of the product, such as product size, bulk density and flowability etc. In traditional coffee spray dryer, fluidized bed is generally a combination of external cooling dry. The traditional coffee spray dryers have external fluid beds for drying and cooling. Our design has inner fluidized bed to make the product meet the requirements of moisture contents and packing temperature.

The particle of final product from spray dryer is normally within the range of 100–350 micron, varying as per the configuration of the plant, processing parameters, and scale of the plant etc.

Our special design also increased the product collection rate. As per the parameters from our customers, the highest product collection rate is around 99.7%.

The factors that influence the final product are not only the final drying section, but also the fore process. To have the best product, it is necessary to coordinate the entire process.

7) Agglomeration / Granulation

To meet the market requirements of big particles and no dust, we also supply agglomeration equipment, which can make the small particles from spray dryer into big particles. Depending on requirements of different customers, the agglomerated particles are normally within the range of 1500–3500 microns.

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