Vacuum cooling mushrooms: the quickest pre-cooling technique

Vacuum cooling

Mushrooms Vacuum cooling is a process which cools the produce by evaporating a fraction of the moisture from the produce, by reducing the pressure inside the vacuum room. At very low pressure, water wants to evaporate (“boil”) spontaneously at room temperature or lower. The evaporation process requires a lot of energy, and takes this energy from the produce, thus lowering the temperature of the produce. The effect is a very fast and very uniform cooling of the produce. And the process is very easy to control, and extremely energy efficient.

Product suitable for vacuum cooling need an open structure and a lot of surface as evaporation only takes place at the surface. Mushrooms are, like leafy vegetables and flowers, perfectly suited for vacuum cooling. Studies have shown that vacuum cooled mushrooms are significantly better with regard to colour (enzymic browning) than conventionally cooled.

Weber Cooling BV started supplying vacuum cooling around 5 years ago. They offer ranges:

Compact Range: Compact units, for the field in in the packing house, with simple mechanical control.

Standard Range: Cost price optimized solutions. From 3 up to 6 pallets.

Next Gen: Top quality standardized systems with modular technology. From 3 up to 12 pallets.

Specials: Made to order, from small demo up to energy optimized AirCraft Pallet Systems.

Advantages WeberCooling

Weber Cooling has a wide experience with vacuum cooling of mushrooms, both on laboratory scale (see other video white mushrooms ) as in real life. They’ve supplied many growers with vacuum cooling solutions. From simple & compact (1 or 2 pallet) to large scale (8 pallets or more).