As a rule, the production of alcoholic beverages (horilka, whiskey, cognac, rum) involves preparing a water-alcohol solution of the required proof. If necessary, it may be followed by addition of flavoring ingredients or coloring agents to the resulting mixture.
Batch Method Limitations
The batch method can be used to prepare a water-alcohol solution; according to this method, mixing occurs in steel tanks with a volume of 3–12 cubic meters and lasts 1.5–2 hours. The disadvantages of this method include a relatively low capacity, the difficulty in ensuring a high accuracy of water-alcohol solution proof, and possible alcohol losses.
GlobeCore USB Continuous-Duty Mixing Units
GlobeCore has developed an innovative technology for preparation of water-alcohol solutions, which is implemented in continuous-duty USB units.
The process of producing a water-alcohol mixture with the use of USB mixing units is as follows. Using a pump, the treated water is supplied from a separate tank to the injection mixer of the USB unit, while the injection mixer creates a vacuum, under which the required amount of alcohol is drawn from a separate vessel through a flow meter. An injection mixer constitutes an injector ending in a turbulator. Due to this structure, phenomena such as cavitation and hydrodynamic impact occur inside the injection mixer, contributing to efficient inline mixing of alcohol and water.
Addition of Ingredients and Continuous Mixing
If necessary, during the production of varietal alcoholic beverages, the estimated amount of ingredients is fed into the mixer by way of appropriate solutions. These may include flavoring, coloring agents, or various tinctures. Having a capacity of up to 100 cubic meters per hour or more, the USB units allow for inline mixing of two to seven ingredients.
The use of continuous inline mixing with GlobeCore technology applied to produce water-alcohol solutions allows for reducing the number of tanks involved in the mixing process, ensures high stability of the solution and its proof accuracy within 0.05–0.1% relative to the rated value, shortens the mixing time, and cuts back on alcohol losses.
GlobeCore mixing units are compact and may be used to upgrade existing alcoholic beverage production facilities by converting them from batch-type to continuous processes.