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Drying of camel milk on a GMF-Gouda Double Drum Dryer If it is possible to make chocolate out of "normal" milk (cow milk), it should also be possible to make it out of camel milk. That is probably what our customer, the Al Ain Dairy Farm, located in the United Arab Emirates, must have thought. In order to find out whether their idea would be realistic, some tests were carried out within their company. When the first results turned out to be positive, they contacted a renowned producer of chocolate, the Austrian company Schokolina, and entered in to a cooperation to produce camel milk chocolate. To have the camel milk processed into chocolate, it has to be dried . In this stage, GMF-Gouda got involved. Almost one hundred years of drying experience have proven that the best method to dry milk is using a double drum dryer. But we had to admit: camel milk was new for us, too! One of the main differences between camel and cow milk is the relatively high level of vitamins in camel milk. To find out whether drying of camel milk on a double drum dryer milk would be just as successful as drying of cow milk, several tests were carried out in our test lab, using the the pilot double drum dryer machine. Because of a dry solid content of camel milk of 10%, the double drum dryer had to run at a low capacity (6 to10 kg dried product, per m2, per hour). Due to the high level of minerals in camel milk the dried film tended to be thermoplastic. To avoid this, a film cooler was installed under the film. The result: a beautiful film of dried camel milk! These positive tests results convinced Al Ain Dairy Farm to order a GMF-Gouda Double Drum Dryer, type T9/30 (2 drums with a diameter of 900 mm and a lenght of 3000 mm), complete with product collection hoppers, a mill sifter and a film cooling system. The machine will be shipped to the U.A.E. at the end of 2005. The customer expects to have the first camel milk chocolate bars on the market in the 2nd quarter of 2006. |