Development of Powdered Food Granulation Technology by Using The Aqua-Gas Binder (Steam-Water Two-Phase Binder)

Abstract

In the powdered food, because there is a strong cohesion and low fluidity in the fine powder, a problem occurs during production of the weighing and filling and when dissolved soup with hot water. As a solution, we generally granulate the fine powder and make up the granules. In the fluidized bed granulation process of powdered food, which is one of the granulation technologies, aqueous solution is usually sprayed as a binder to the powder to grow the granules, however, increase in the moisture content of granules often spoils the product quality and elongates successive drying period. We developed the efficient granulation technique by using the Aqua-Gas Binder (Steam-Water Two-Phase Binder) as the binder of the fluidized bed granulation. In instant corn soup, granules of the same size are formed in a small amount of water of about 30％ by aqua-gas binder. The characteristics of the granulated granules were found to have excellent fluidity and solubility as compared with the liquid binder.