Tomato Sauce Making Equipment

Steps for success and tomato sauce making equipment

Tomato sauce production is a fairly straightforward process involving the preparation and mixing of ingredients. Sauce makers soften the skin and seeds for ease of removal, after which pressing machines extract the juice and tomato solids used in making sauce. Additional ingredients such as herbs and oil are typically added to a mixer with the pressed tomatoes to improve taste and create a sauce ready to cook with. Finally, the latest tomato sauce making equipment is for labeling and bottling, which provides a rapid and efficient system for preparing your finished tomato sauce for distribution.

Considerations of content, how do conditions and constituents affect your sauce?

Ingredients and other factors readily influence tomato sauces. Storing tomatoes in cool dark places can permanently eliminate the flavor. Sugar, salt, and oil are added to further develop the flavors of tomato sauce. Sugar levels in tomato sauce are quantified by their Brix number as 1 gram of sugar to 100g of solution. The acceptable Brix range for fresh tomatoes is between 3.5 and 5.5, but tomato sauce requires a Brix number of at least 4.5. This can differ depending on the tomato varieties used.

Refractometry is the method used to measure this quality. Fruit pectin influences the thickness of the sauce, while protein content helps to stabilize the taste qualities of the final sauce. The temperature treatment of tomatoes inactivates pectin methylesterase, which is one of the most important enzymes affecting the quality of such products. Without this treatment, the enzymatic reactions will continue unchecked even after bottling or canning.

Temperature breaks a tomato sauce makes

Temperature plays an important role in the processing of tomatoes, and offers a convenient way to manipulate their properties. In the processing of tomatoes, there exist a “hot break,” “warm break,” and “cold break” method for preferential preservation of attributes. The hot break is performed at 100 °C preserving only the pectin for a thick and highly viscous paste. The warm break heats to about 79 °C, and while flavour is preserved, colour is not. Finally, the cold break method at 66 °C preserves both colour and flavor. This method is best for producing tomato sauce, which may then also be reconstituted into tomato juice or pulp.

Paste and purée and sauce, oh my!

The tomato is a versatile but volatile fruit with great potential and plentiful pitfalls. Processed tomatoes are generally broken down into paste, purée, and sauce according to their viscosity. Tomato paste often requires many hours of reduction in a sauce making machine to concentrate its characteristic potency and flavor. To contrast, tomato sauce may be produced in practically minutes from raw tomatoes, requiring only the preparation and some time in a tomato press, before mixing.

Tomato purée offers something in between, with a thicker body and richer taste thanks to its higher concentration of tomato solids. Producing paste will require equipment such as stainless steel food mills and pressing machines capable of meeting the pre-processing needs, like temperature breaking and skin removal. Producing quality sauce necessitates an understanding of the many factors such as density sugar and ingredients influencing the final taste.