1. Apple is the most common fruit in the world, the fruit is growing in temperature zones such as Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia, China and the United States. Apples are rich in vitamin C, sugar, cellulose, tannic acid, pectin, etc. They can not only be eaten fresh but also can be produced into all kinds of products like apple juice NFC and concentrate, apple puree, apple cider, and apple chips according to different technological processes.
2. The Apple or Pear processing line capacity is from 1T/H to 30 T/H fresh fruit input available. The end product filling container is also diverse like small bottles, tetra pak cartons, metal cans, pouches or 220kg aseptic bags.
3. The whole apple processing plant is automatic and controlled by PLC, The equipment configuration and combination is flexible to meet the different requirements of clients. The material of apple processing equipment is made of SUS304 material, which can ensure the hygiene requirements of food production.
4. The apple juice production process typically involves several stages, including fresh apple washing, sorting, milling, apple juice pressing, enzymatic treatment, clarification, pasteurization/sterilization, filling, and packaging.
5. The apple or pear processing plant includes fruit washing machine, fresh apple or pear sorting machine, apple or pear crushing and juice extracting machine, apple juice enzyme treatment and filtration system, apple or pear juice concentration machine and sterilizer, juice filling machine, etc.
6. We offer the turnkey project apple or pear processing plant machinery and all the apple or pear processing equipment and technological flowchart can be customized and flexible to meet customers’ different requirements.

—Concentrated apple/pear juice: 70brix, PH value is 3.2-4.4, filled into 220kg aseptic bag in drums and 5kg bag in box.

—Non-concentrated(NFC) apple/pear juice: MIN 9.5brix, PH 3.2-4.4 vary with crop year, filled into 220kg bag in drums or 5kg bag in box or small PET/glass bottles.

—Blended apple/pear juice// Apple/pear juice repacking line: filled into a small package like PET/glass bottles, cartons or other packages.

—Apple vinegar/cider: Fresh apple juice or concentrated apple juice after blended, then through acetic acid fermentation and alcoholic acid fermentation to obtain the apple cider, then after filtration, sterilization, filling into bottles or cans.

—Apple/pear puree: Fresh apple after washing, sorting, crushing, pulping, then we get the fresh apple puree, then add ingredients and mix the all the ingredients evenly, at last after homogenizing, degassing and sterilizing, then filled into small pouches which can be used for baby food. The apple puree can be made into 10-12 Brix or 28-30 Brix.

Concentrated and NFC apple/pear juice: Fresh apples or pears after washing and sorting, crushing, color-protecting, belt press juicer, disk separator, enzyme treatment, ultra-filtration treatment, then we will get the fresh clear apple juice. If we concentrate apple juice, then we will obtain the concentrated apple juice, then after sterilizing, the end products will be filled into aseptic bags; If we do not concentrate, then will get NFC clear apple juice, after sterilizing, the end products will be filled into aseptic bags in bulk or blended with water or other additives, homogenizing and degassing filled into small bottles.

Reconstituted apple/pear juice: Use concentrated apple juice as raw materials, after blending with water, sugar and other additives homogenizing, vacuum degassing, sterilizing, and then filling into small bottles or cartons.

Before cleaning, there are a lot of microorganisms on the surface of the apple and pear. By air-blowing washing, the microorganisms are reduced to 5%. The cleaning effect depends on the cleaning temperature and time, PH value, hardness, and mineral content of the cleaning solution.

The fruit is sorted by roller conveyor so that the apple is turned during the transporting process. The advantage is that it can more thoroughly remove bad and insect fruits and mechanical wounds fruits, weeds, and foreign matter.

Apple or pear before juice extracting needs to be crushed, the crushing process can increase the juice yield rate. During crushing, VC or citric acid can be dosed into the fruits to protect the color of the fruits.

Fresh apple or pear after crushing, the piece size is 3-9mm even particle, The crushing method is using of mechanical crushing. The principle is crushing by roller squeezing and blade cutting. Finally, the sieve surface with a certain aperture is the size of the fruit particles in accordance with the standard. The crusher rotated speed and the sieve screen can be adjusted according to the requirements.

Dosing mash enzyme preparations into the apple or pear mash or pomace can increase the juice press working efficiency and juice yield rate. Dosing Pectinex Ultra SP-L enzymes, the dosing quantity is 100ml/ton of fresh apples, enzymatic hydrolysis for 1 hour at 25℃-30℃, then the apple juice yield rate can increase from 75%-78% to 88% with the belt press.

During the crushing process of the apple, the apple pulp is in contact with the air, which easily causes the pulp to undergo oxidative browning. The mixed solution of ascorbic acid and citric acid can be used for color-protecting. And color-protecting system mainly includes a mixing tank, diaphragm metering pump, valves.

The belt press juicer is specially used for extracting juice from apple or pear, The equipment adopts multi-stage folding bar and pneumatic roller to press, after the juice is pressed, it will be fed into the vibrating screen to filter the fruit pomace in juice. At the same time, it also has the characteristics of energy-saving, high degree of automation, automatic feeding and discharging, continuous work, strong universality, sufficient pressure and filtration, low water filtration of filter cake, convenient operation and maintenance, etc. The juice yield rate can reach 70%-90% with belt press, which can increase the yield rate of by 20 ~ 35% compared to other fruit juice extractors, so it can greatly reduce the production cost and improve the economic benefit of the enterprise.

When the production capacity is less than 2 tons per hour, the screw press juice extractor can also be used for extracting apple or pear juice. The advantage of the screw press is a low investment, flexibility and easy operation, which is an ideal equipment for small-scale apple juice processing manufacturers, but this machine has lower juice yield rate compared to belt press, and during juice extracting, the juice will be heated, so the flavor and VC in juice will also be loss in some extend.

After the juice is extracted, one plate pasteurizer is preferred to use to inactivate the enzymes in the juice. The pasteurizing process is 30℃ juice inlet pasteurizer, 90-95℃ hold for 15-30S, then 50℃ cooling for the enzymatic hydrolysis process.

Pectin and gum and other colloidal substances exist in apple juice, pectinase must be added to make pectin juice reach a clear state. The enzymatic hydrolysis tank is for adding enzymes to juice, the adding amount is determined according to the nature of the apple juice, the content of pectin and the activity of the enzyme.

There is a hot and a cold method for enzyme treatment. In the hot method, the enzyme is mixed into juice at 55°C and held for 1 to 2 hours. In the cold treatment, the enzyme is mixed into the juice at room temperature, 20°C and held 6 to 8 hours. The enzyme activity can be monitored by adding five milliliters of juice to 15 ml of HCL-acidified ethyl alcohol, and observing the mixture for 5 minutes for gel formation. No gel formation means that the depectinization has been completed. Equipment used in this process is liquid mix tank, steam jacket, temperature sensor, level sensor and valve.

The disk separator is one prefiltration process, this process’s main purpose is to remove any solids in apple juice to be ready for the apple juice feed into the ultra-filtration system. If the apple juice contains colloids, starch and other substances, these solids will contaminate the membrane during the following membrane filtration process.

After disc centrifuge separator separating, the apple juice typically has a total solids content in the range of 0.1–1% (w/w). Most of these solids are soluble (e.g., sugars, acids), but suspended solids and colloidal particles must be minimized to prevent fouling.

There are a lot of turbid substances in freshly squeezed apple juice, mainly including suspended solids and sediments (such as fruit pulp and fiber, pectin, starch, protein). The ultrafiltration membrane can intercept most of the molecular substances in the squeezed fruit juice so that small molecular component such as soluble sugars, organic acids and water can pass through the membrane to obtain clear fruit juice.

To clarify juice by ultrafiltration system, only part of the pectin needs to be removed first, which can reduce the amount of enzymes used. At the same time, the recovery rate of juice is also improved, up to 98%~99%. The quality of juice is improved, and the turbidity is reduced to 0.4~0.6NTU. Sterilization can be performed at the same time, extending the shelf life of the product. The pore size range of the composite ceramic/hollow fiber membrane used for apple juice clarification is 0.2~0.8μm.

The Ultra-filtration system is designed to produce clear apple juice in the juice processing line. It consists of tanks, a recycling pump, a membrane stack as the core part, clear juice pump, clear juice tank, and control system etc. This system has high filtration accuracy and less loss of effective nutrients and aromatic components in the juice. The system process is mature and reliable, high degree of automation, simple operation, and high labor intensity.

The concentration-time of apple/pear juice is usually a few minutes, and the evaporation temperature is usually 55-60 ℃. Under such a short evaporation time and such a low evaporation temperature, it will not have a big effect on product ingredients and quality.

Apple concentration is mainly using a falling film evaporator to evaporate 12brix apple juice to about 70brix. The falling film evaporator is fully automatic and the material is SUS304/316 material. material inlet, material outlet, Brix value, and concentrating temperature are all full automatic. All the key parts like PLC, touchscreen, steam valve control system, and refractometer all use first-class world famous brand like SIEMENS, SCHNEIDER, ATAGO, Spirax Sacro brand.

And during evaporation, one aroma recovery system can be equipped to ensure the apple juice can keep all the flavors and aromas. It consists of several vacuum condensation columns that condense the aromas using cooling fluids at different temperatures. The aromas are then extracted by flash evaporation and, depending on the grade of quality, sent to one or more collection tanks or later added again to the product. This allows for the recovery of aromatic essences that would otherwise dissolve in the air. When recovering aromatic substances, the concentration of apple aromatic substance concentrate is 1:150 when the water evaporates from apple juice by 15%.

Since the pH value of apple juice is between 3.2-3.7, it is an acidic juice, so heat-resistant bacillus cannot reproduce in the juice. Therefore, in the heat treatment of apple juice, the sterilization temperature does not need to exceed 100°C, so it can kill all bacteria, germs and microorganisms.

NFC Clear apple juice uses tubular type or plate type sterilizer to process depending on the filling method. If we use the hot filling, then we can use the plate-type pasteurizer, the sterilizing technological process is 75-85℃ for 15 sec; if the concentrated apple juice or NFC apple juice is filled into an aseptic container, then we use the tubular type sterilizer, the sterilizing technological process is 95-97℃ for 15-30 seconds.

There are two types of filling: One is for hot filling, and the other is for aseptic filling. The hot filling machine usually connects with a pasteurizer and fills into small bottles or pouches; The aseptic filling machine usually connects with tubular type UHT sterilizer, filling into aseptic bags, and tetra pak packages.