Flash pasteurization, also called "high-temperature short-time" (HTST) processing, is a method of heat pasteurization of perishable beverages like fruit and vegetable juices,

beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

, and some

dairy products Dairy products or milk products, also known as lacticinia, are food products made from (or containing) milk. The most common dairy animals are cow, water buffalo, nanny goat, and ewe. Dairy products include common grocery store food items in ...

such as milk. Compared with other pasteurization processes, it maintains color and flavor better, but some cheeses were found to have varying responses to the process. Flash pasteurization is performed to kill spoilage

microorganism A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in olde ...

s prior to filling containers, in order to make the products safer and to extend their

shelf life Shelf life is the length of time that a commodity may be stored without becoming unfit for use, consumption, or sale. In other words, it might refer to whether a commodity should no longer be on a pantry shelf (unfit for use), or no longer on a ...

compared to the unpasteurised foodstuff. For example, one manufacturer of flash pasteurizing machinery gives shelf life as "in excess of 12 months". It must be used in conjunction with sterile fill technology (similar to

aseptic processing Aseptic processing is a processing technique wherein commercially thermally sterilized liquid products (typically food or pharmaceutical) are packaged into previously sterilized containers under sterile conditions to produce shelf-stable products ...

) to prevent post-pasteurization contamination. The liquid moves in a controlled, continuous flow while subjected to temperatures of 71.5 °C (160 °F) to 74 °C (165 °F), for about 15 to 30 seconds, followed by rapid cooling to between 4 °C (39.2 °F) and 5.5 °C (42 °F). The standard US protocol for flash pasteurization of milk, 71.7 °C (161 °F) for 15 seconds in order to kill ''

Coxiella burnetii ''Coxiella burnetii'' is an obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen, and is the causative agent of Q fever. The genus ''Coxiella'' is morphologically similar to ''Rickettsia'', but with a variety of genetic and physiological differences. ''C. ...

'' (the most heat-resistant

pathogen In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ ...

found in

raw milk Raw milk or unpasteurized milk is milk that has not been pasteurized, a process of heating liquid foods to kill pathogens for safe consumption and extending the shelf life. Proponents of raw milk have asserted numerous supposed benefits to consu ...

), was introduced in 1933, and results in 5-

log reduction Log reduction is a measure of how thoroughly a decontamination process reduces the concentration of a contaminant. It is defined as the common logarithm of the ratio of the levels of contamination before and after the process, so an increment of ...

(99.999%) or greater reduction in harmful bacteria. An early adopter of pasteurization was

Tropicana Products Tropicana Brands (''pronounced as'' traa·puh·ka·nuh) is a former American fruit-based beverage company. It was founded in 1947 by Anthony T. Rossi in Bradenton, Florida. Between 1998 and 2021 it was a subsidiary of PepsiCo, but in August 2021 ...

, which has used the method since the 1950s. The juice company

Odwalla Odwalla Inc. () was an American food product company selling fruit juices, smoothies and food bars founded in Santa Cruz, California in 1980 and from 1995–2020 was headquartered in Half Moon Bay, California. Odwalla's products included juices, ...

switched from non-pasteurized to flash-pasteurized juices in 1996 after tainted apple juice containing ''E. coli'' O157:H7 sickened many children and killed one.Questions of Pasteurization Raised After E. Coli Is Traced to Juice
''The New York Times'', 4 November 1996

References

External links

The Pasteurization of Beer
– ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Flash Pasteurization Food preservation

References

See also

External links