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What Is a Blast Freezer?

Mar. 06, 2021

Blast freezer is sometimes referred to as shock freezer. The idea of this type of freezer is to very quickly lower the temperature of (usually) food or fresh produce so that it freezes quickly. They are widely used in the frozen food industry, for example for ice cream, pre-prepared meals, vegetables or fish. Many commercial kitchens also use freezers. Yangtzecooling provides the blast tuna fish cold room and blast durian cold storage.

Why use a blast freezer?

When you freeze food (or anything else for that matter), the water inside crystallises into ice. The longer the freezing process takes, the larger the ice crystals become. Larger ice crystals can cause phenomena such as cell breakage, which can damage the material and therefore the quality and flavour of the food.

Rapid freezing results in very small crystals being formed, causing less damage to the crystals and preserving the food at a much higher quality. More usefully, once the food has been 'blown up', it can be moved into a normal refrigerator for long-term storage - provided, of course, that the refrigerator is kept cold enough to keep the food frozen.

Blast Cold Storage For Frozen Durian

The advantage of blast-freezing preservation is to ensure that durian meat is peeled off when it is naturally ripe without any additives and is healthy and safe.

Generally, durian is stored in a low-temperature freezer at - 60 C about three hours after landing for quick freezing. After one hour of rapid freezing, durian is stored in a freezer at - 18 C to - 22 C. In this way, the rich and sweet durian can be fully preserved.

Blast Durian Cold Storage

Pre-cooling process

Durian blast-freezing preservation is a very rigorous technology. After picking, durian must be eaten or frozen within 8 hours. Otherwise, the fruit is easy to ferment naturally and rot after producing a lot of water.

The price of cold storage is generally calculated according to the requirements of capacity and temperature to accumulate the cost of cold storage. Mainly as follow.

-45~-60℃ : Mainly to use to quick freezing whole durian after picking.

-35~-45℃: Mainly used for quick freezing of processed and clean pulp. Flesh Moving of Durian Fruit after Quick Freezing.

-18~-25℃: Long-term storage in the freezer is convenient for later production of various durian delicacies.

How do you blast freeze?

Many blast freezers use blowers that force cold air through the contents of the freezer compartment in order to cool it quickly. Others can work in other ways depending on the design. They can be equipped with removable trays to hold food and often include various compartments for freezing.

A normal freezer can usually handle food at room temperature or heated as long as the capacity of the freezer is not overloaded. Placing large quantities of hot food in the freezer will raise its temperature, which will negatively affect its cooling capacity.

Safe freezing in blast chillers

In addition to the integrity, quality and taste of the food, quick-freezing offers health and safety advantages as the extreme cold slow down the growth of bacteria. By handling food safely and then placing it in the freezer immediately after preparation, the risk of contamination is greatly reduced.

This benefit to food safety is one of the reasons why quick freezing is used in commercial food preparation, as it greatly reduces the risk to customers and consumers.