Fat crystallization method and apparatus therefor

A process for crystallising fatty substances, in particular lauric fats and lauric or non-lauric fatty acids for their subsequent fractionation especially by pressure filtering, characterized in that it consists in melting the fatty substances, dividing the molten mass into beads which are as homogeneous as possible and which have dimensions as regular as possible, feeding these beads into an aqueous solution refrigerated previously to a temperature lower than the melting point of the fatty substance, adjusting the concentration of the fatty substance relative to the aqueous solution in function of the capacity of this solution to absorb the amount of heat required for solidifying the fatty substance beads, controlling the feed rate of said beads into said solution in order that each fatty substance bead is subjected instantaneously to a beads/aqueous solution heat exchange which causes the surface of the beads to solidify quickly and progressively the entire mass thereof, maintaining the fatty substance beads in suspension in said aqueous solution, adjusting the temperature of the beads/solution mixture to enable the crystallisation of each bead to stabilise, maintaining said mixture temperature until said crystallisation is completely stabilised, subsequently transferring the beads/solution mixture to the filtration location whose surfaces which come into contact with said mixture are kept at a temperature near the temperature of the mixture, separating the fatty substance beads under a low pressure from the aqueous solution, and finally extracting from said fatty substance beads, under a high pressure, the liquid portion of the fatty substance.