Barsotti Juice employs disintegrators that deliver improved products.

As the old saying goes, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Unfortunately, it's not that simple for juice bottlers who need to ensure the quality of their beverages via single-strength or mechanical extraction systems for juice production. That's because yield is, in part, determined by particle size when bottlers use mechanical extraction. If the fruit is under-macerated, it's impossible to extract all of the juice, and yield is reduced. If the fruit is over-macerated, suspended solids are increased, the quality of the juice is diminished, and there are additional filtration and clarification costs.

Barsotti Juice Co., a premium wholesale juice operation in Camino, CA, wanted to improve the quality of its juices, which meant it had to find processing equipment that would neither over- or under-macerate the fruit used in the juice-making operation. For help, CEO Gael Barsotti turned to Sebastopol, CA-based Corenco, a size-reduction equipment manufacturer. On Corenco's suggestion, Barsotti decided to install the company's all-stainless disintegrator that's designed to deliver an optimized, uniform product with a smaller median particle size.

"It was the optimized particle size which left an intact cell structure in the fruit slurry that gave us the increase in juice quality we were looking for," says Barsotti. "Our whole operation is about quality. We don't use press aids, such as rice hulls which change the taste and add sediment of their own, even though we could get an extra 5 percent to 7 percent yield. The Corenco disintegrator produces a slurry, which is pumped into our ‘squeezebox' press using a specially designed cavity pump to preserve the optimal cell structure. The squeezebox-style press uses the cake as part of the filtering process, which produces a clean juice without solids or sediment that would require additional processing down the line. Both the press and pump are manufactured by Goodnature.

"We flash-pasteurize the juice extracted from the cells of mature fruit, which is made up of water, soluble solids, aromas, flavor compounds, vitamins, minerals, pectins, pigments and even a little fat and protein so as not to impact their color or flavor profiles," Barsotti continues.

Another benefit of Corenco's new higher-capacity disintegrators is they will accept product that is 40 percent larger than the old retrofit grinders used by many juice processors, so apples, pears, cherries and a variety of oversized fruit can be processed without a change in operation. Also, Corenco's use of off-the-shelf parts, such as a 30 hp motor, reduces replacement parts costs by half and lowers maintenance costs, says the company.

For more information:

Chris Cory, Corenco,
800-969-1005