Yihao Classroom
How to prevent microbial contamination in red bean paste?
Red bean, also known as "love bean", is a plant grown in southern China. Its seeds resemble flattened peas and are bright red in color.
Speaking of red beans, those interested in classical Chinese poetry will surely remember the timeless quatrain by the great Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei, "Thinking of You": Red beans grow in the southern lands, how many branches sprout in spring? I wish you would pick many, this thing most evokes thoughts of love.
This is a poem that uses an object to express longing. A direct translation is: Red bean trees grow in the south, when spring arrives, how many new branches will they produce? I hope you will pick many red beans, they best evoke feelings of missing someone. The central theme of the poem is the preciousness of friendship, and that friends should cherish their friendship and think of each other often.
In fact, red beans are not only a symbol of love but also have good nutritional and health benefits. As a food ingredient, they can be processed into various foods, with red bean paste being one example. Red bean paste is made from red beans, edible oil, white sugar, etc., using steaming, crushing, and stir-frying processes. As a sweet food ingredient, red bean paste has a wide range of applications and can be used to make various foods such as mooncakes, bread, sesame cakes, pumpkin cakes, shortcakes, spring rolls, buns, tangyuan (glutinous rice balls), and zongzi (rice dumplings).
During processing, red bean paste is susceptible to microbial contamination and spoilage. Taking soft-packaged red bean paste as an example, spoiled red bean paste will exhibit the following phenomena: packaging bag inflation, sour taste, and alcoholic odor.
Mr. Zhou Lifa, a technician from the Shanghai Kangjiu Disinfection Technology Center, believes that strengthening hygiene management in multiple aspects and adopting comprehensive quality control measures can effectively improve the safety and quality of red bean paste. Using dynamic disinfection technology, food preservation barrier technology, and selecting hygienically qualified raw materials can prevent microbial contamination of red bean paste, eliminate the problem of spoilage, and thus extend its shelf life.
Red beans, also known as "sea red beans." Red beans are rich in saponin, which can stimulate the intestines and have a good diuretic effect. They can relieve alcohol poisoning, detoxify, and benefit those with heart disease, kidney disease, and edema. The skin of red beans is rich in dietary fiber. When eating red beans, do not remove the skin to obtain more dietary fiber, which can promote bowel movements, lower blood pressure, lower blood lipids, regulate blood sugar, detoxify, fight cancer, prevent stones, and aid in beauty and weight loss. Red beans are rich in folic acid and have a galactagogue effect for postpartum women and nursing mothers.
Red beans have a sweet, sour, and flat taste, are non-toxic, and belong to the lung, heart, and spleen meridians. They have the effects of clearing wind-heat, drying dampness and relieving itching, and moisturizing and beautifying the skin. Eating red beans can have a dampness-transforming and spleen-tonifying effect, suitable for people with weak spleen and stomach. In dietary therapy, red beans are often used as an auxiliary treatment for hypertension, atherosclerosis, and edema caused by various reasons, and have multiple effects such as relieving summer heat, relieving heat toxicity, and promoting digestion.
Red bean paste is a common processed red bean food. Its processing ingredients are: red beans, white sugar, edible oil, water, and salt.
The key points for processing red bean paste are as follows:
1. Select high-quality red beans as raw materials, with requirements including: intact beans, deep red color, uniform size, firm and thin skin. The darker the color of the red beans, the higher the iron content and the better the health benefits.
2. Place the selected red beans in a stainless steel cleaning machine, add disinfected water, and start the mixer to clean them by stirring.
3. Remove the washed red beans from the mixer, place them in a ceramic or stainless steel container, add clean water, and soak overnight. The water should cover the surface of the red beans. The water should be disinfected using household and ozone sterilization equipment, and the water temperature should be controlled below 18 degrees Celsius.
4. Remove the soaked red beans, put them in a pot, add water, heat, and pressure cook until the red beans become soft and mushy.
5. After the cooked red beans have cooled slightly, put them in a meat grinder and grind them into a paste.
6. Put the red bean paste in a wok, add white sugar, edible oil, and salt, heat, and stir continuously.
7. When the red bean paste becomes a very thick paste and is difficult to stir, heating can be stopped. At this time, add "high-efficiency compound sand filling preservative", stir well, and the red bean paste is ready.
8. Transfer the cooked red bean paste to a disinfected stainless steel tray and cool it in a clean and hygienic cooling room.
9. Pack the cooled red bean paste into clean food-grade composite plastic bags and seal them.
10. According to relevant food safety standards, test the red bean paste for sensory, nutritional components, and microbial items. Products that pass the test are finished products and are then stored and sold.
Red bean paste has a high sugar content. The osmotic pressure generated by high sugar can inhibit the growth and reproduction of microorganisms, which is beneficial to the quality assurance of red bean paste. Moreover, after high-temperature steaming and stir-frying, the spoilage microorganisms contained in the raw and auxiliary materials have been killed. Generally speaking, sealed red bean paste will not have food safety problems such as exceeding microbial limits or spoilage. However, problems with exceeding microbial limits in red bean paste still occur from time to time.
According to Mr. Zhou Lifa from the Shanghai Kangjiu Disinfection Technology Center, the main reason why red bean paste fails to meet microbial standards is that it contains abundant carbohydrates, proteins, fats, water, and minerals, making it easily contaminated by microorganisms. Although the high temperature of the stir-frying process can kill bacteria, during the cooling process, as the temperature decreases, yeasts and molds in the workshop air can contaminate the red bean paste, causing the product to swell, become sour, and produce an alcoholic smell, affecting the flavor and safety quality of the red bean paste.
Mr. Zhou Lifa from Shanghai Kangjiu Disinfection Technology Center believes that in order to extend the shelf life of red bean paste, red bean paste and other food ingredient processing enterprises should adopt comprehensive quality control measures: 1. Select raw and auxiliary materials with good hygiene quality. 2. Improve the environmental hygiene quality during the transportation, storage, and processing of raw and auxiliary materials to prevent raw and auxiliary materials from being contaminated by microorganisms. 3. Carry out disinfection work for personnel processing and packaging red bean paste. 4. After the red bean paste is processed, the exposure time in the air should be shortened as much as possible, and it should be packaged and sealed as soon as possible. 5. Red bean paste processing enterprises should disinfect production equipment, air, containers, and facilities that come into contact with food. 6. Control the processing volume of red bean paste to ensure sterilization effect. 7. Formulate a scientific processing process, strictly separate finished products and semi-finished products, and avoid cross-contamination between previous and subsequent processes.
It is worth mentioning that the use of efficient NICOLER dynamic disinfection technology and food dynamic disinfection equipment can effectively sterilize and disinfect the air, production equipment, and tools in the workshop, prevent microbial contamination, and thus improve the safety and quality of red bean paste.
Dynamic disinfection technology refers to a sterilization method in which humans and machines can operate simultaneously. When disinfecting the air, personnel do not need to leave the disinfection site, and it does not harm human health, so this disinfection method is called dynamic disinfection. Shanghai Kangjiu Disinfection Technology Center uses advanced disinfection technology to successfully develop the "Food Dynamic Disinfection Machine". The working principle of this disinfection machine: Under the action of the negative pressure fan, the air contaminated by microorganisms is drawn into the disinfection machine. When passing through the plasma electrostatic field, negatively charged bacteria and other microorganisms are decomposed and broken, and then combined with drug-impregnated activated carbon and other components for secondary sterilization and filtration. The treated clean air circulates rapidly and in large quantities, keeping the food workshop in a clean and hygienic state.
The NICOLER food dynamic disinfection machine is an advanced sterilization and disinfection equipment, mainly used for synchronous dynamic sterilization and disinfection of red bean paste and other food factories while people are working. In recent years, this equipment has been gradually used in the warehousing, processing, cooling, and packaging links of some large food enterprises, and has been widely used in brine processing rooms and catering consumption places.
Red bean paste has high nutritional and health value, can be used as a raw material for processing various foods, and is also widely used in the catering and cooking industry. Sweetness is a taste that almost everyone likes. In recent years, with the increase in the number of consumers of sweet foods such as bread, sweet glutinous rice balls, sweet buns, and mooncakes, the processing volume of sweet foods in China has also increased sharply. Bakeries and pastry shops of all sizes throughout China are springing up like mushrooms, which is enough to show the extent to which sweet foods are loved by the public. Using dynamic air disinfection technology, compound food preservation technology, and other measures to process red bean paste can improve the safety and quality of red bean paste while also helping to promote the development of new sweet food products and the development of the sweet rice and noodle product processing industry.
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