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Automatic UF Canister Filling

Primodan has delivered more then 35 UF feta cheese plants primarily to Iran and eastern parts of Europe. Below the process for filling UF feta cheese in canisters is described in short terms. For more information please contact Primodan.

Small canisters, 4-6 kilos, will normally be filled with one layer of cheese, whereas the larger canisters, 16-20 kilos will be in 2 - 4 separate layers.
With 1 filler for each layer the capacity of the plant will be approximate 120 canisters/h.
After coagulation of the top layer of the cheese, a cutting takes place through all layers, cutting the cheeses into the desired number of blocks.
After the cutting of acidified cheeses like for instance Feta, a parchment membrane is automatically deposited on top of the cheese, whereupon the desired quantity of dry salt is dosed on top of the membrane.
For unacidified cheeses like for instance Domiati, brine is dosed directly on the cheese following the cutting.
After salting / brining the canisters are sealed.

The plants are built with one coagulation conveyor for each layer to be filled. The length of the conveyor allows a coagulation time of about 20 min. for acidified cheese and up to 30 min for unacidified cheese. At the entry to each coagulation conveyor is a filling station with a servo operated elevator lifting the canister to the desired filling height under a filling nozzle. - The filling nozzle is connected to the dosing pumps for retentate and rennet and is provided with a static mixer.
The chassis of the machine as well as the columns and the V-shaped roof are all in stainless steel. - The walls are made from transparent Lexan providing a good view of the whole process.
In the roof ventilation units with HEPA filters are installed, sending a laminar stream of ultra clean air down over the coagulation conveyors.
Before first filling the canisters are sprayed internally with "slip-spray" and following each filling, nozzles are mounted for possible spray with "anti foam".
Primodan is specialised in supply of food approved anti-stick and anti-foam products, Primo-slip to avoid viscous and "in package" coagulated products to stick to the packaging material.

Semi-Automatic UF Canister Filling

Primodan also produces semi-automatic UF canister filling units. The unit is built on a stainless steel frame and is equipped with the following:

A pneumatically operated pump for rennet/culture pumping from a plastic container to a stainless steel buffer tank.
Level controllers in the buffer tank activate the pneumatic pump.
A stainless steel tank with level controls is mounted for the retentate.
A mono type sanitary pump is pumping the retentate to the dosing unit.
In the discharge line of the pump is mounted a flow meter for accurate measuring of the retentate quantity to be dosed.The desired quantity is coded in on the stainless steel control panel, which is equipped with a Siemens PLC S7 unit.
Rennet/culture is from the stainless steel buffer tank measured into the retentate line by an electrically driven double cylinder dosing pump.
Retentate and rennet/ culture are mixed in a dynamic mixer. From the dynamic mixer a 10 m sanitary hose is connected to the filling gun. The filling gun is hand held and a filling is activated by a push button on the filling gun.
The unit is supplied with a special spraying gun used for spraying canisters internally before filling with retentate
A cutting device is also delivered for vertical cutting of the cheese layers in the canisters.

The unit is built for CIP cleaning for connection to a central CIP plant. The filling gun is during CIP installed in a special vessel ensuring internal as well as external cleaning of the gun.