The process of crust freezing uses the extremely low temperature of liquid nitrogen (LIN), which reaches -196°, to freeze just the outer three or four millimetres of a product very quickly.This gives the products a much more rigid structure enabling food manufacturers to cut thinner slices of meat more accurately, using a faster blade speed. Critically, crust freezing also prevents tearing – a major cause of food waste in the cut meat production process.
The LIN exposes the meat to such cold temperatures that it quickly freezes the surface 3-4mm, whilst not affecting your product's quality which remains considered as a fresh product. This rapid surface freezing minimises damage to the membranes in the meat and reduces moisture loss, making the cutting process cleaner and again helping to reduce waste by maintaining the quality of the meat slices. The hardened product surface can also help the manufacturer produce thinner slices.
From a commercial point of view, the speed of cryogenic crust freezing makes it more energy efficient than traditional mechanical freezing, and enables producers to slice more product, more quickly. For those manufacturers cutting or slicing warm product, they don't need to wait until the product has cooled down in a cold storage, reducing process bottlenecks. Cryogenic freezers can also be turned on and off easily and at short notice, meaning that production lines can easily be scaled up or down to meet demand.
LIN freezers can also be used to help the formation of delicate products such as cakes and deserts. By crust freezing or crust chilling the individual layers of the cake as they are created, the process can be speeded up, reducing bottlenecks and helping produce a superior product.
A crust frozen cake or desert is also easier to package reducing waste and product damage. The freezer technology associated with the use of LIN brings additional benefits. Continuous cryogenic freezers can be used in conjunction with high speed cutting, MAP and packaging machines to form one continuous production line. This can reduce labour requirements as there is no need to physically move product from batch freezers across to the cutting line, making the whole process seamless and more efficient.
