Method for improving the taste, texture and mouth feel of a liquid dairy product and for concentrating same

A method for improving the taste, texture and mouth feel of a liquid dairy product and for concentrating the liquid dairy product, comprising:

• (1) disposing the liquid dairy product in a scraped surface heat exchanger and cooling the liquid dairy product therein to a temperature at or below its freezing point to provide a cooled liquid dairy product;
• (2) passing the cooled liquid dairy product to a recrystallizer and crystallizing ice crystals from said cooled liquid dairy product to produce a mixture of concentrated product and ice crystals;
• (3) passing the concentrated product and ice crystals to a vertically disposed, vertically elongated ice scrapper wherein the ice crystals are mechanically worked and separating a portion of said ice crystals from the upper part of the ice scrapper and from said mixture in said ice scrapper and heating the separated ice crystals to form a melt thereof;
• (4) passing the melt into the ice scrapper near the upper part thereof and washing the said mixture in said ice scrapper with the said melt to form a washed mixture of the concentrated product and the ice crystals in the said ice scrapper;
• (5) separating the remaining ice crystals from the washed mixture and recovering the concentrated product;
• and wherein the amount of ice crystals formed in the crystallizing step is sufficient that the recovered product has a solids content of at least about 20.