Powdered flavor

The category of powdered flavors includes a vast number of flavor constituents that have been prepared on a dry basis to meet specific requirements of the food industry.

Plating or blending is a time-honored and inexpensive way to prepare powdered flavors.

This kind of flavor can be divided into two categories. One is absorptive powdered flavor which is made by absorbing flavor base on carriers like maltose or maltodextrin.

The other is encapsulation powdered flavor which is made by emulsifying and spray-drying the flavor base. Encapsulation enables the creation of a dry, free-flowing powdered flavor. The coating protects the favoring from interaction of the food, inhibits oxidation and can enable controlled flavor release. This kind of flavor is mainly used in powdered drinks.

In modern spray drying plant, the liquid flavor is emulsified with gum arabic to make a solution of about 35% total solids which then are fed into the atomizer.

The dryer evaporates 800 lb per hours to recover 375 lb of dried flavor powder plus 90 lb of powder fines that is reprocessed.
Powdered flavor

Production of spray dried flavor

Spray drying is the oldest commercial technique for producing ‘encapsulated’ flavoring in volume.

This process generally involves producing an emulsion of the flavoring in an encapsulation matrix.

The carrier used for these purpose are maltodextrin, acacia gum, lactose, sucrose, milk proteins, soy proteins isolates and modified starches.

Production of spray dry flavor

Homogenization is used to prepare the emulsion, with a particle size averaging – 1 um. As a general rule, the better the emulsion, the more stable the dried particles.

A typical emulsion may contain one part flavor component, four parts gum arabic, and four parts water before drying.

The emulsion is fed into a spray dryer; it is passed through atomization into hot-air streams where evaporative cooling brings the inlet air temperature down from 200-325 °C to 80-90 °C.

The retention of volatile flavors when water evaporates during the course of spray drying is an interesting phenomenon. In fact, the volatility of these compounds is much higher than water itself. Nevertheless flavor volatiles remain locked into the particle matrix.
Production of spray dried flavor