The Processing of Sweetened Condensed Milk (SCM)

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Flow diagram: The processing of SCM (click pic to magnify)

How is the SCM processed which makes the Malaysian Teh Tarik so tasty?

AkiraSabine shall explain it as simple as possible in layman terms...

Powder Handling 

The different types of milk powder (SMP, SWP & SBMP) are weighed according to formulation and mixed before finally arriving at the final hopper. 

Dissolving, Hydration & Mixing

Water is then added to dissolve the powder batch at a certain temperature before the mixed batch was transferred into the hydration tanks(HT). Each hydration tank fills one hydration batch to ensure continuous supply to the downstream processing. From the hydration tank, the hydration batch makes a loop and return to the same tank. In the loop, the milk is preheated, in-line mixing of liquid ingredients which are the palm oil, sugar syrup and liquid maltodextrine takes place and the mixture passes through the in-line turbo mixer in order to mix them well. 

Evaporation

Before the evaporation, the milk is first homogenized. Homogenization is a mechanized high pressure forcing of the mixture through micro gaps in order to disperse the oil molecules. As a result of it, the miscibility of oil in water is more stabilized to avoid separation due to the density gap between both liquids. Pasteurization (at a high temperature but short time) is meant to kill most of the bacteria without compromising on the quality of the milk. Last but not least, the milk then passes through the falling film evaporator. This stage at 55 deg C and vacuum condition, water is sucked out of the milk to yield a more viscous product as it passes through the calandria portion of the falling film evaporator.

Cooling

It is then cooled down with a Plate Heat Exchanger(PHE). Lactose powder is added to ensure crystallization of uniform sugar granules in the end product to avoid grainy texture.

Crystallization

Allocation of 1 hour for the sugar to crystallize properly at 23 degr C in the super huge (60Tonne) crystallization tanks.

Rework

As the name implies, the earlier crystallization batch which was not up to expected standards is returned and added to reprocess the milk together with the current batch.

Filling

The ready product in the crystallization tank is transferred to be filled at the filler into 505 g tin cans.

UP NEXT on this topic...

AkiraSabine shall share real pictures of these gigantic processing equipments.

Stay tuned!