Instant Coffee Machinery Manufacturers

Instant coffee production machinery — spray drying and freeze drying

Instant coffee is produced by extracting roasted ground coffee with hot water (creating a liquid coffee concentrate), then removing the water to produce a dry, water-soluble powder or granule. The two main drying technologies are: spray drying (the liquid coffee extract is pumped to an atomiser that disperses it as fine droplets into a hot air stream inside a large drying tower; the droplets dry almost instantly to produce a free-flowing powder; spray-dried instant coffee has good solubility and a long shelf life but lower aroma quality than freeze-dried); and freeze drying (the liquid extract is frozen into a solid, then dried under vacuum by sublimation — water passes directly from ice to vapour, preserving more of the volatile aromatic compounds; freeze-dried instant coffee has superior aroma and is sold at a premium; the process is more capital and energy-intensive). Agglomeration (wetting and re-drying fine spray-dried powder to produce larger granules) improves flow properties and presentation. The complete instant coffee line includes: roasting; extraction (multi-stage column percolation extractors); concentration; spray drying or freeze drying; agglomeration (optional); and packing.