1. Condensed milk is a milk product that is concentrated and sterilized and is characterized by storing for a long time. It can be divided into unsweet condensed milk(concentrated milk), sweet condensed milk, and prepared condensed milk.
2. Condensed milk processing uses fresh milk or milk powder as raw materials, after the milk products are standardization, heat treatment, evaporation, crystallization(for sweet condensed milk), canning, and sterilization(for evaporated milk) process, resulting in the final milk products.
3. Condensed milk processing machines include fresh milk receiving system, milk standardization system, milk pasteurizer, milk powder dissolving system, sugar dissolving system, milk evaporation system, milk crystallization system(for sweet condensed milk), condensed milk canning system, metal can retort sterilizing system(for evaporated condensed milk), metal cans packing system, RO water treatment system, hot water generating system and CIP system.
4. The capacity of condensed milk processing is from 2 tons/day to 100 tons/day, and the condensed milk products are typically filled into metal cans, aseptic cartons, tubes or bottles. The end product’s shelf life can reach 18-24 months under the ambient temperature.
5. The whole condensed milk processing plant is fully customized and flexible to meet different client requirements, one processing line can use both fresh milk or milk powder as raw materials to make both sweet condensed milk and light condensed milk products.
6. The condensed milk processing machines are made of SUS304 material, which can ensure the end products meet food-grade requirements.

Sweet condensed milk: It is basically concentrated milk to which sugar has been added. The product is yellowish in color and looks like mayonnaise. The high sugar concentration in sweetened condensed milk increases the osmotic pressure to such a level that most of the microorganisms are destroyed. The sugar concentration in the water phase must not be less than 62.5% or more than 64.5%. The sweet condensed milk can be filled into 300kg bulk drums, 500g-3000g metal cans or aseptic cartons.

Light condensed milk: It is also called double concentrated milk, it is typically made by evaporating about 60% of the water from fresh milk, it is a sterilized product, light in color and with the appearance of cream. The product is made from whole fresh milk, skim milk or recombined milk with skim milk powder, anhydrous milk fat (AMF) and water as typical ingredients. The concentrated milk can be filled into metal cans, bottles, or carton containers.

Prepared condensed milk: It is to add different ingredients or food additives (food additives, nutritional fortifiers) to the condensed milk to adapt to different uses and taste needs.

Cocentrated milk production process: The fresh milk or milk powder is recombined, standardized and pasteurized, then pumped into the evaporator for concentration. After that, the concentrated milk will be homogenized and filled into metal cans. The concentrated milk in cans will be fed into a retort sterilizer for the second container sterilizing to obtain a stable shelf life, at last, the end products will be cooled to room temperature and stored cool and dry warehouse.

Sweet condensed milk production process: The fresh milk or recombined milk powder after heat treatment will be pumped into evaporator, during the concentration process, the syrup will be dosed into concentration milk to obtain the desired dry matter, the cooled the sweet condensed milk to let the lactose crystallizes in saturated solution, after crystallization, the sweet condensed milk will be filled into metal cans, bottles or tubes.

Milk pretreatment system mainly refers to fresh milk receiving system, milk powder recombining system (if using milk powder as raw materials), milk fat standardization system, and milk heat treatment system.

Fresh milk receiving system refers to fresh milk after weighing and chemical checking, then stored in milk cooling tanks.

The milk powder recombining system will use a water powder mixer to dissolve milk powder in water to make the milk powder into the reconstituted milk, the ratio of milk powder and water is 1:8 when dissolving.

The milk standardization system is mainly for standardizing milk fat and milk dry matter in setting ratio, after the milk standardization, the fat and dry matter ratio is 1:2.25.

Milk heat treatment is pumping fresh milk into the plate or tubular sterilizer, and the heat treatment formula will be 100-120℃ for 60S. After heat treatment, the whey protein in milk will be inactive and achieve the desired viscosity.

Milk evaporation is removing 60% of the water from fresh milk through 60-70℃ heat treatment in a vacuum state to get the thick milk products. The falling film evaporator or coil-type evaporator will be used for fresh milk evaporation.

If the capacity is small and the client can accept the batch production, then coil-type evaporator will be a good choice, the coil evaporator has a small investment and during the evaporation process, it can also cook the milk to make the end condensed milk have better flavor.

If the capacity is big, then a falling film evaporator will be preferred, as it can concentrate milk continuously.

In sweet condensed milk processing, the syrup will be added during the evaporation process to mix with the milk, The amount of added sugar is between 45% and 48%, then evaporated the milk to desired dry matter.

After the milk evaporation, it will be pumped into the high-pressure homogenizer, under 15-20Mpa pressure, and the concentrated milk will be homogenized.

After milk is homogenized, both condensed milk or concentrated milk need to cool down to 14-18℃.

During the crystallization process in sweet condensed milk production, the concentrated milk and sugar solution is cooled to 15℃, encouraging the sugar molecules to form crystals. This cooling process can be facilitated through various methods such as chilling tanks or evaporators. As the temperature decreases, sugar molecules begin to arrange themselves into crystalline structures, gradually thickening the mixture. The size and uniformity of the crystals play a significant role in determining the texture and quality of the final product.

The crystallization process is undertaken in a ribbon-type mixer crystallization tank, usually, it takes about 3-8 hours to form about 10μm crystals, as the sweet condensed milk is in high viscosity, so the agitator in the crystallization tank needs to be durable, strong and solid.

Both sweet condensed milk and evaporated milk will be filled into the metal cans. The condensed milk filling machine adopts rotary plunger filling, which has accurate measurement and is suitable for filling high-viscosity materials.

For the evaporated milk, after filling into the cans, the cans need to be transferred to a retort sterilizer for the secondary sterilizing (120℃ holding for 15 minutes) to obtain a stable shelf life.