For many years, beverage manufacturers have adopted digital refractometers as their primary instrument for measuring the final dilution ratio (°Brix) of re-constituted fruit juice not only to assure product quality but also in an attempt to reduce losses by tightly controlling concentrate yields. For most fruit types this has been successful but for one of the most commonly produced juices, the high accuracy measurement achieved by latest technology digital refractometers has unmasked an erratic behaviour within an orange juice sample that prevents tighter dilution control, which in turn negates any opportunity of cost reduction by way of lowering target values without the risk of compromising minimum specifications defined by regulation.
Over the past two years, leading refractometer manufacturer and xylem company Bellingham + Stanley has been working alongside a major fruit juice producer in order to develop an instrument that can achieve the same high accuracy results for orange juice samples as it can for other fruit based juices. By focussing on the practical handling of the sample prior to high accuracy measurement, Bellingham + Stanley has designed the Pro-Juice Refractometer based it’s the World leading RFM340+ refractometer to offer a measurement accuracy of 0.01 °Brix for sucrose solutions and more importantly, a reproducibility of 0.02 °Brix between orange juice samples, regardless of temperature deviation or operator skill level.
