COMBINATION OF HOT FILLING PROCESS WITH NATURAL EXTRACT TO PRODUCE READY-TO-DRINK BLACK COFFEE AND OTHER NATURAL BEVERAGES
Currently at the production process of Ready-To-Drink, the Hot Filling process is only effective for the product with pH less than 4.5 or usually named as acid food or can be use as well for acidified food(adding some acid to the product to reduce the pH in prior of pasteurization/hot filling). The product example of the former one is juice drink and the later one is Pocari Sweat.
In order to get a good shelf life of product with pH higher than 4.5(low acid food) without using preservative, it should be treated with Retorting process or Autoclaving process, or using UHT(Ultra-High-Temperature) sterilization and combined it with Aseptic Filling. These both process are more expensive in investment compared with Hot Filling Technology. And the knowledge and skill of the operator should be high enough, particularly for UHT-Aseptic Filling.
The pH of coffee drink is higher than 4.5 and a long shelf life is only possible to be achieved by using Retort process or UHT-Aseptic Filling (without adding any preservative).
I just invented the improvement of Hot Filling Process by adding extract from “spices” in prior of pasteurization/hot filling and in such a way making this process is effective to produce a long shelf life of ready-to-drink black coffee without adding preservative such as Benzoate/Sorbate and or acid (to lower pH). The critical point of this process is a heat resistant primary container, which should be able to stand at temperature of 92-95oC, while the shape is flexible such as cup, bottle or others. I invented this process at the year of 2007.
The result of microbiological test for 3 month incubated sample at 30oC is as follow: TPC < 10 cfu/ml, yeast < 10 cfu/ml and mold < 10 cfu/ml.
At the beginning of this year I found out this hot filling process and combination with spices extract is work well for RTD of Mung Bean extract and a herbal drink (ginger based) and Alang-Alang extract.