Gel-Structured Industrial Butter for Hardness and Oil Separation Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Industrial butter used in puff pastry production tends to separate and cause production issues due to low hardness, leading to defective products and conveyor belt disruptions, and existing methods to increase hardness are time-consuming.
Innovation Solution
Heating commercially available butter to a plastic state, cooling it under mechanical stress, and adding a structuring component such as carbohydrates, lipids, or proteins to create a solid oleogel with a hardness of 2 to 5 N, avoiding oil separation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If traditional churning method is used to produce industrial butter, then the production process is simple, but the hardness is too low (approximately 1 N) causing oil separation and production disruptions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies parameter changes by heating the butter to plasticize it and then cooling it under mechanical stress to increase hardness from 1 N to 2-5 N. This physical parameter transformation allows the butter to maintain its simple production process while achieving the required hardness to prevent oil separation and production disruptions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a composite material system by combining butter with a network-forming component (such as proteins, carbohydrates, or lipids) that forms a gel structure. This composite approach increases the effective hardness and structural stability of the butter without requiring complex traditional churning processes, thereby preventing oil separation while maintaining manufacturing simplicity.
2Reliability
If butter hardness is increased to prevent oil separation, then production stability improves, but the time-consuming ripening and churning processes are required
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-forming a gel structure through the network-forming component before the actual butter processing. This pre-established structural framework allows the butter to quickly achieve the required hardness and stability without undergoing time-consuming traditional ripening and churning processes, thereby improving production stability while reducing production time.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the traditional mechanical churning process with a chemical/physical gelation process. Instead of relying on prolonged mechanical agitation and ripening to develop butter structure, the network-forming component spontaneously forms a gel network that provides the required structural stability much more quickly, thus reducing production time while maintaining reliability.
3Ease of operation
If soft butter is used in automated baking lines, then the lamination process is easy, but it causes conveyor belt disruptions and production stoppages
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies parameter changes by transforming the butter from a soft state to a plasticized state through controlled heating, then cooling it to achieve optimal hardness (2-5 N). This parameter transformation allows the butter to be sufficiently firm to prevent conveyor belt disruptions while remaining pliable enough for the lamination process, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and reliability.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The resulting butter maintains consistency and prevents oil leakage, ensuring stable production and high-quality baked goods like puff pastry.
Implementation Method 1
heating commercially available butter to such an extent that it becomes plastic without melting
Implementation Method 2
the plasticized butter thus obtained is cooled
Implementation Method 3
a structure-forming component is added to the cooled butter... The structure-forming component gives the butter the consistency of a solid oleogel
Data Source
AI summary
A proposed industrial butter with a gel structure is obtained or produced by (a) heating commercially available butter until it becomes plastic without melting; (b) cooling the plasticized butter thus obtained; and (c) adding to the cooled butter a structure-forming component selected from the group consisting of carbohydrates, lipids and proteins, and mixtures thereof.