Production of tomato powder

I don’t know if you have ever eaten tomato powder, so let me tell you about the production process of tomato powder:

(I) Raw material selection:

Choose fresh, ripe, bright red, disease- and insect-free tomatoes as raw materials.

(ii) Cleaning:

Remove mud, residual pesticides and microorganisms attached to the fruit.

(III) Selection:

Remove tomatoes that are rotten, have insect spots, or are off-color.

(IV) Thermal crushing:

There are two methods for crushing tomatoes: hot crushing and cold crushing. Hot crushing refers to the method of heating the tomatoes to 85°C immediately after crushing. Since the hot crushing method can timely inactivate the pectin esterase and polygalacturonase in the tomato pulp, the amount of pectin substances retained is large, and the resulting tomato products have a higher consistency.

(V) Beating:

The purpose of pulping is to remove the skin and seeds of tomatoes. A double-pass or triple-pass pulper is used for pulping. The mesh size of the first-pass pulper is 0.8 to 1.0 cm, and the mesh size of the second-pass pulper is generally 0.4 to 0.6 cm. The speed of the pulper is generally 800 to 1200 rpm. The amount of skin residue obtained after pulping should generally be controlled at 4% to 5%.

(VI) Vacuum concentration:

There are two methods of concentration: vacuum concentration and atmospheric pressure concentration. Atmospheric pressure concentration has a high concentration temperature, which will cause the tomato pulp to lose color and flavor due to heat, resulting in poor product quality; while the temperature used in vacuum concentration is around 50°C and the vacuum degree is above 670 mmHg.

(VII) Drying of tomato concentrate

There are many methods for drying tomato concentrate, mainly freeze drying, puff drying, drum drying, foam layer drying and spray drying.