In hot weather, in order to cool off a bit, many prefer to use a refreshing soft drink called lemonade. Its recipe was created around the 17th century. Initially, only lemon juice, sugar and water were used as ingredients.
Now any carbonated drink is colloquially called lemonade.
Appearance story
The production of carbonated lemonade became possible when the English chemist J. Priestley invented a special pump. The device, which was called a saturator, allowed to mix water with gas. After that, they began to produce a variety of drinks that used berry or fruit syrups. They were bottled and called lemonade.
In modern plants, natural syrups are replaced by acids and essences. At the same time, a wide assortment list of various low-, medium-, and also highly carbonated soft drinks is produced.
Idea for business
Many entrepreneurs have recently become interested in opening such a business as the production of soft drinks. The production of lemonade in Russia is gaining momentum every year. The popularity of this drink is increasing more and more, which allows businessmen to receive good income.
The relevance of a refreshing drink
Lemonade is an attractive product not only for adults. Children especially like him. In hot weather, no one will refuse to buy a glass of a refreshing sweet drink. Given the variety of tastes, the seller can always offer its various options.
However, it is worth remembering that almost ninety percent of sales are carried out in the hot summer season. In winter, a refreshing drink is irrelevant, and its large-scale production can cause losses.
Recipe
To produce a liter of lemonade, take three hundred grams of lemon juice, placing the raw materials in a large container. After that, distilled water is added in the volume of one and a half liters, as well as 50 g. Sahara. According to this recipe, it is possible to produce lemonade at home. However, the price of a natural drink is quite high, so it is almost impossible to find it on the market. Concentrates are used on an industrial scale for the production of lemonade. At the same time, artificial drinks have a long shelf life.
Technology
In the production of lemonade, the blending method is used. It is the basis for making a sweet drink. Blend is a mixture of ingredients that are part of lemonade. Get it cold, half-hot or hot method.
The composition of lemonade, which is produced industrially, contains water and sugar, citric acid and juices (tangerine or apple). To obtain the necessary color, natural dye is used. It is burnt sugar. Depending on the formulation, other ingredients may also be part of the lemonade.
Most of all in this drink of water. That is why special attention is paid to its quality. Lemonade production technology involves filtering, softening and disinfecting water. Then it is fed to a syrup boiler using a special pump.
In this unit, water is mixed with must, passes through special heat exchangers, filters, and then enters the blending vessel. In the next step, the mixture is washed with syrup. To give the drink a refreshing effect, carbon dioxide is included in its composition.Carbonation of varying degrees occurs in saturators. At the next step of the technological process, the almost finished product is subjected to cooling, and then it is distilled to the bottling line.
Container selection
The equipment for the production of lemonade can be selected correctly only if the novice entrepreneur has decided on the packaging for the final product before purchasing it. The most versatile and economical packaging is PET bottles.
Such containers may have a variety of forms, volumes. It is produced in one of the premises of the plant. In this case, it will be necessary to equip the blowing workshop, in which specialized machines will be located. Glass containers or tin cans can also be used to pour lemonade.
Filters
Equipment for the production of lemonade should include a water supply system. Such machines are made of food grade stainless steel. The system designed for water treatment should include quartz and carbon filters, as well as a sodium ion filter, a UV sterilizer and an ozone generator.
Raw water taken from a well to produce an environmentally friendly and high-quality drink is simply unsuitable. That is why there is a need to use a filtration system. In purified water there will be neither heavy metals, nor extraneous odors, nor hydrogenation products, nor microbes, nor organic substances.
Sugar processing and melting
Equipment for the production of lemonade - this is certainly a two-layer syrup boiler, which has good thermal insulation. Its volume should be at least five thousand liters. Such a device is also necessary for the production of a variety of sweet drinks.
The main purpose of the boiler is to dissolve sugar, which is initially melted to a syrup with steam or electricity. After this, the prepared raw materials are transferred using a special pump to the filter tank. According to the recipe of the drink, edible extracts, food additives, etc. can be added to the syrup. At the last stage, the product is cooled to fifty degrees.
The syrup boiler is very durable, easy to operate, has high stability and efficiency. It belongs to one of the main devices used in the production of sweet drinks.
Bottling
Equipment for the production of lemonade should include an apparatus with which the finished drink will be packaged in pre-selected containers. There are many types of bottling systems. The main selection criterion is the desired performance, as well as the type of packaging and drink.
Bottling can be carried out at high atmospheric pressure, as well as under vacuum. Individual models of bottling systems are capable of dispensing drinks, which is performed by volume, time, weight or level. At the end of the filling process and after capping the container, a label is applied.
For this process, special devices are needed. Labeling machines (as they are called) have different capacities. Modern models of this equipment can paste from one thousand to sixty thousand bottles per hour. In this case, the labels are either self-adhesive or made of polypropylene material.
Container packaging
For more convenient transportation of the finished drink, you will need to purchase a shrink machine. Its main purpose is the formation of group packaging. Shrink equipment is made of crucible or chamber type. In this case, based on the tasks, a separate unit or automatic line can be purchased. Packaging containers with a finished drink in shrink film provides transport group packaging with a special substrate or without it.
Bottling and packaging systems are available and combined type. Their functions include capping and rinsing containers. An example of such systems is a triblock, which is designed for filling both carbonated and non-carbonated drinks.
It is possible to use containers with a capacity of five hundred ml to one and a half liters. Such machines have a high degree of automation and ease of operation. Triblocks have a high feed rate, and special pneumatic devices to avoid bottle deformation.
Finished product
The result of the work of the whole system are film-tightened blocks consisting of bottles with a drink, on which labels are already applied. This completes the manufacturing process for the production of a sweet non-alcoholic product.
The price of equipment for the production of lemonade can range from one hundred thousand dollars to a million. It all depends on its performance, as well as on the type of drink and container. In addition, for the production of lemonade, it is necessary to have refrigeration units and an electronic control panel that will allow you to control the operation of all units.
