Patent Application
20210337849
Mayonnaise, a staple condiment and base for many other sauces and dressings, fundamentally comprises a flavored blend of fat particles suspended in water. Normally, the chemical compositions of fat and water cause them to repel one another when mixed. Thus, the ingredients require an emulsifier and a stabilizing agent to cohesively combine, in a process called emulsion, whereby one liquid is slowly added to another together with simultaneous rapid mixing. The mixing disperses and suspends tiny droplets of one liquid through the other. The emulsifier prevents the two mixed liquids from separating again immediately.
In traditional mayonnaise, the common emulsifier is egg yolk, which contains lecithin, a chemical compound with one end that attracts water and repels fat, and a second end that repels water and attracts fat, allowing the water and fat particles to respectively bond with the lecithin and stay mixed instead of separating. Another common foundational ingredient in mayonnaise is an acid such as vinegar, lemon juice or lime juice. Though not strictly mandatory, an acidic ingredient provides additional water for the fat particles to emulsify in, and by its chemical properties, enables the absorption of more fat by the lecithin in the egg yolk to make stronger-bonding and greater quantities of mayonnaise. Traditional mayonnaise commonly utilizes oil from fruits, flowers, nuts, vegetables, or seeds such as olive, canola, or vegetable oil as its source of fat particles, primarily because of their convenience, availability, and neutral taste.
The ingredients are mixed together in order to create the mayonnaise. The smaller the size of the fat particles created in the mixing process the more stable the mayonnaise is (less likely it is to have the oil and water separate). Commercially sold mayonnaise is made with an industrial-grade emulsifying machine such as a high-shear mixer that can combine and produce a large quantity of mayonnaise at a faster rate and with greater mixture stability. A high-shear mixer has the capability to reduce the size of fat particles in the emulsion to their smallest size. The small fat particle size increases the storage stability period of the resultant mayonnaise, the mayonnaise does not separate for a longer period of time. If the ingredients for an emulsion are not properly dispersed or reduced in size, they are likely to quickly separate and break the emulsion, making it unviable for commercial sale.
The features and advantages of the various embodiments will become apparent from the following detailed description in which:
Animal fat has many uses but is rarely used in emulsions or sauces (e.g., mayonnaise). This may for any number of reasons including, for example, the animal fat may oxidize and become rancid resulting in a short shelf life, animal fat is harder to create tiny particles that result in a good emulsification (produces loose combination of fata and water), and/or misconception that animal fat is not healthy. However, animal fat offers many benefits over traditional fruit, flower, nut, vegetable, and seed oils including, for example, it is usually cheaper and more plentiful commercially than other oils because it is available as an unused byproduct on many animal-raising farms and to many meat-product producers, it is better-tasting than most fruit, flower, nut, vegetable, and seed oils, and despite common misconceptions to the contrary, studies suggest that animal fat has a plurality of health benefits, including anti-carcinogenic properties.
Animal fats have been utilized by some to make homemade sauces for personal and casual use. Sauces made at home for personal use can be produced using mixing or blending by hand or with a commercial home mixer or blender. Such methods are untenable for making high quantities of sauces because emulsion by hand or with commercial home mixers and blenders will typically cause the resulting sauce to separate within a few weeks. Moreover, mixing or blending by hand or with a home mixer or blender cannot produce sufficient sauce quantity for commercial-scale production or sale.
What is needed is a method for producing sauce using animal fat on a commercial scale to obtain the quantity, quality, and life of traditional commercial-grade sauce (e.g., mayonnaise) with the benefits of animal fat over common fruit, nut, seed, flower, and vegetable oils. The use of an industrial-grade emulsifying machine such as a high-shear mixer can be utilized to ensure that the animal fat particles are made sufficiently small to produce a good emulsion. An anti-rancidity or antioxidant (e.g., vitamin E, rosemary oil extract (ROE), bovine casein hydrolysate (BCH)) may be utilized in the mix to prevent the animal fat from becoming rancid and enabling longer shelf life.
The rotors 320 are configured to rotate at a sufficiently high speed to generate a pulling force on ingredients introduced into the container 310. As the rotors 320 pulls the ingredients, they contact the blades 322, which then generate a centrifugal pushing force to push the same ingredients into the screens 332. As the ingredients are pushed between the blades 332 and the screens 332, they are milled into smaller and smaller particles by a process called shearing. Contributing to the shearing process is the hydraulic forcing out of the ingredients through the screens 332 back into the container 310 containing the ingredients to be mixed, from where the mixture is circulated by being pulled back into the rotors 320 and forced back out of the screens 332 continuously until the emulsion is generated to the user's specifications.
The emulsifying machine 200 or high-shear mixer 300 may include additional components that were not illustrated. For example, the devices 200, 300 may include one or more mixing tanks in which ingredients may be introduced into the container 210, 310 to be mixed. The devices 200, 300 may include fill tanks where the finished product (mayonnaise) is routed and stored. The finished product may then be packaged (e.g., bottling). The devices 200, 300 may be one of several types, including vacuum, batch, inline, etc.
The shearing process disclosed may be used to produce a highly stable emulsion of mayonnaise made from animal fat that will be, and remain, highly stable for a sufficiently long period of time as to allow it to be used in commercial sale. The inclusion of the anti-rancidity/antioxidant in the mixture will prevent the animal fat from oxidizing.
Next, the animal fat is prepared to be introduced into the mixture (e.g., create a liquid) 445. The animal fat, which may be solid at room temperature, may be in solid form so may be warmed to liquefy it. The liquefied animal fat is then introduced into the mixture by slow drip until an appropriate quantity has been provided 450 The speed of the mixing of the high-shear mixer is increased as the animal fat is added (as volume of mixture increases) 455. The viscosity of the mixture is measured to ascertain when the sauce is done 460. The sauce will have the desired consistency and texture when the viscosity is in the desired range of 30,000-40,000 cp. The mixing continues until the desired viscosity is obtained.
Once the desired viscosity is obtained, the completed mixture can then be extracted or pumped from the container 465. The extracted mixture may be provided to a fill machine that can be used to fill and seal containers to house the product 470. The containers may then be transported and commercially sold.
According to one embodiment, the ingredients of the mixture may contain approximately 60-80% animal fat (e.g., lard, grease, filtered liquid fat, unfiltered liquid fat), 20-40% egg yolks, 0.05-1% acid (e.g., lemon juice), less than 1% rancidity regulator (e.g., vitamin E), and less than 2% of other ingredients (e.g., spices, seasonings, organics) for taste.
The types of products, including the type of high-shear mixer, described above and shown in the accompanying figures are not intended to be limiting, but to encompass any type thereof. The pH and viscosity levels identified above are intended to describe only preferred levels for the embodiment of the method described herein and are not intended to limit the scope thereto. Animal fat as identified above may be animal fat as a byproduct from any animal, including pig, duck, cow, and chicken, and is not intended to be limiting thereto.
Although the disclosure has been illustrated by reference to specific embodiments, it will be apparent that the disclosure is not limited thereto as various changes and modifications may be made thereto without departing from the scope. The various embodiments are intended to be protected broadly within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
This application claims the benefit under 35 USC § 119 of U.S. Provisional Application 63/017,897 filed on Apr. 30, 2020. Application 63/017,897 is herein incorporated by reference in their entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63017897 | Apr 2020 | US |
