Freezing Technology

2.4.1.4. Cooling and Storage Tests

 While studying the chilling effect of Deep Chill ice slurry with flake ice, it was found that, ice slurry provides more efficient chilling than flake ice. This is because ice slurry effectively eliminates hot spots in the fish container and provides maximum contact of ice surrounding the fish. 

1. It significantly retards bacterial growth and reduces fish tissue degradation.
   
2. The temperature drop in the fish body is extremely significant in the early stage of the cooling process.
3. The final equilibrium temperature of the fish is approximately 1⁰C lower, using the same amount of ice slurry compared to flake ice.
   
4. The difference in cooling level occurs due to the larger enthalpy change of the ice slurry. No uptake of salt was detected while using slurry with 0.8% salinity.

 The quality of the product, such as the texture, colour and bacteria retardation is greatly improved. Automated fish handling with ice slurry improves the productivity of the plant, and the plant is able to deal with higher load without incurring too many shifts per day.