1 Nov'2011 Master Kong & Dynasty Wine factory visits

Today we visited Master Kong instant noodle factory. It's huge! They have really few workers, everything is done by machine.

 Too bad, we cannot get the picture for the line production. But for the basic the procedure is as following:

material handling -> continuous mixing -> dough sheet combining, continuous pressing -> steaming -> 

sauce spraying -> cutting -> frying -> cooling - accumulate -> packing with sauce -> metal detecting 

-> barcode printing -> automatic wrap-around packing ->robotic pallet.

They also have a museum, "instant noodle impression museum". What a name!

In the afternoon we visited Dynasty Wine company. 

 We didn't go to the production line due to sanitation issue. We only went to the storage room. They first store their wine in the oak barrel for 3 years in maximum and after that transfer it to bottles.

  Asta la vista!

31 Oct'2011 Ice cream & tofu making

Today we went to visit Tianjin University of Science and Technology. They have 2 campuses, the main campus is in Hexi and the new campus is in Tanggu. We went to the one in Tanggu because the Food Science College is located here. We went around seeing the library. And then we met Prof. WANG Jianming again. She and some other professor expertise in cheese making, together with her students, taught us how to make ice cream and tofu. 

We had a lot of fun during the lab work. We were divided into 4 groups. We made different flavor of soft ice cream, but it was too soft due to not enough cooling. Only Masoud's group was successful enough, they cooled down the ice cream along lunch time.

These are the processes: 

 1. Mixing

2. Take a look at the total milk fat and protein content

3. Homogenizing

4. Pasteurizing

5. Cooling

6. Adding flavor agent, we went for strawberry. 

7. Ice cream machine

These were our lunch! Finally, something good!

 In the afternoon we made tofu. First, we grind 1kg of overnight-soaked-soybeans with 3L of 65-70C hot water.

Second, cook it at 95-98C for 2 minutes.

 Third, after it was cooled down to 70--80C, pour it this way to a container filled 

with 12g CaSO4 (diluted in small amount of water). 

You should pour it like this to make it mixed, but DO NOT MIX/STIR IT ANYMORE!

After 10 minutes, this was our curd. It looked good at first.

We pressed it. But what we got was dried tofu. Reason was we over-mixed our curd, disrupt the coagulation process. The other groups' tofu were much better!

We also made a Japanese tofu, put GDL in soy milk, 

heat it for 10 minutes, and there you go! 

Put some sugar in it, cool it down, yeah, it is soy pudding! 

 At night, we went to a barbeque buffet restaurant! 
If I gained weight,.....blame them! 

30 Oct'2011 River of Grace

It's Sunday!! And great thing is they have a church in the hotel! Praise the Lord! 

We had no activities in the morning so me and Maricruz went to the service in the morning. I'm blessed with the worships and whole services. People are so welcome and I felt the presence of God within. 

Pastor Jordan reminded us to kill the giants in our life because Jesus has conquered all of them. 

We should breakthrough bad things, breakthrough sins, breakthrough problems and pressure.

Don't be like Israelite who kept looking back and focused their eyes on problems. We should push through bad things.
We are selected people, we are not just anybody Bad things and good things are always there, but don't worry about the giants, just push in and see what God is doing.

There is always good reports and bad reports. The Israelite died because they wanted it, they chose not to believe in God, in His plan, in His guidance.

God, I want to You more, reveal Your plan in me I want a life without fear, life without fear losing anything. Teach me to trust You. Deliver me from fear and take me to the new level. In Your matchless name I pray, Amen.

After lunch, we took the bus and went to Tianjin. We arrived at Tianjin around dinner time so we went directly to Mc Donalds after checked in the hotel. Truly, it was my first Big Mac ever! I never had Big Mac before. Way too big! 

  

I enjoyed so much the red leaves on the way to Tianjin.

We stay at Tanggu, Tianjin. Bad thing is it's far away from the city center. Think I need to cancel my sight seeing plan.

Anyway, the hotel is perfect! Enjoy the good things, put away the bad things. 

29 Oct'2011 Temple of Heaven & 中关村

Today we went to visit temple of heaven. Don't judge me that we seems to have more fun than class. Ha ha! 

It's weekend! Though I forgot that it's weekend. :p

I've been here for several times, so at first I was thinking to skip it. Considering it's a formal training group, I decided to go with them. But well, it's still new things to be seen. Weather was also much way better than the day we went to the Forbidden City. 

After KFC for lunch, they were going to Pearl Market （红桥市场）for shopping. I left early and went to Zhongguancun by Metro. **) It was my first time to be here. People said that it's the IT center in Beijing, yeah, it's huge!! It felt good to take a break on my own. I checked some cameras there, considering to buy a waterproof and anti-shock camera now. At the end of the day I went to watch "Limitless". Was not so interesting. I ended up with a bowl of Hong Kong wonton noodle and took a metro back to the hotel. Refreshed!

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

 This is Me and Shaimaa (Egypt)

 This is Mr. Kim (DPR.Korea) 

This is Mr. Hao from Malaysia with a special "fish eye photo effect"

28 Oct'2011 Bread Making Technology

This day we had a teacher from the number 1 agricultural university in China, China Agricultural University, Prof. LIANG Jianfen. We had a great time I can tell you that. Her lecture was very systematic; she knows what to tell and what not to tell. 

These were bold points I learned today:

- What is the different between bread and Chinese steamed bun (incl. noodles, dumplings, mantou, baozi)?

First, the flour used. In bread, hard wheat flour is used, while in Chinese steamed bun, medium wheat flour is used. 

Second, bread is baked while Chinese wheat products are usually steamed.

- Hard wheat VS. soft wheat

In a hard wheat structure the starch granules are coated with continuous film of protein, while in soft wheat structure the protein doesn't cover starch granules in continuous matrix.

-GSE

I know some people are sensitive to gluten due to celiac disease. They are also called GSE (gluten sensitive enteropathy). Is there any gluten-free bread company in China? According to the professor, NO, because GSE are rarely found in China.

-The amount of water added to dough is important

47% of water is not enough to bind the starch & formation of gluten, resulting in unbound matrix.

50-53% of water is just enough, continuous network is formed and optimum for gas trapping.

56% of water is too much, dough will have many holes and weaker bond.

- Frozen Dough Technology

At the end of the day we joined the opening party of the other batch of training. They were just come to Beijing for Food Biotechnology training for two months. They have more participants than us; most of them are from Africa and South East Asia. Great time!

 Me and participant from Zanzibar Island

They were learning how to dance Cambodian dance  

27 Oct'2011 Beer Brewing Technology

Beer.. is not my favorite.. But well, we got to know more about it.

Have I learned anything about beer before? I don't think so. **)

WANG Deliang, PhD., came to be our lecturer today. He works in CNRIFFI, deals with these beer stuffs. He is an expert of it I might say. I do understand what he was telling us all about. I can even still remember some details. 

Before we produce beer, we need to "modify" these things

1. Starch --> should be degraded into simple sugar. Why? because yeast can only use simple sugars.

2. Protein --> should be hydrolyze to amino acid or peptide

3. Glucan --> because it affects density and haziness 

Raw materials:

1. Hop

2. Yeast

3. Malt barley. Shouldn't be barley due its high protein contents, which leads to hazy beer

4. Water :)

Procedures:

1. Mashing, produce suitable food for yeast (eliminate things above), use protease, amylase, glucanase in different pH and temeprature

2. Wort separation

3. Boiling, to kill bacteria, inactivate enzymes, concentrating, haze stability, convert a-acid to iso-a-acid

4. Cooling and pitching the yeast, special technique

5. Fermentation, usually 9-15C, 1.5-3 days in China (mild flavor), but 20C, 7-8 days in Belgium (strong flavor)

6. Filtration, remove yeast

7. Packaging

8. Pasteurization, to ensure safety and killing m.o.

Why German's beer is so popular all over the world?

Because hundreds years ago they made a German purity law that beer can only be made from barley malt, hops, water and yeast alone. It's pure.

But in other country where barley can't be cultivated, other starch is use.

Not bad, huh? One more thing, the most important research done these days are how to prolong the flavor stability. These days, beer's flavor can only be kept stable for about 3-5 months, though the other parameters can be kept stable for a year. Anybody interested in this project?

That's about the class. Today I also met a participants from Timor Leste, a small country beside Indonesia. It was my first time to meet people from Timor Leste, fun! **) And I just knew that they speak 4 different languages in their country, Bahasa Indonesia, English, Portuguese, and Timor language. 

Our beer specialist teacher, Mr. Wang

26 Oct'2011 Food Plant Design & Equipment Selection

Today we learned how to design a food factory, how to select the equipment needed, selecting location, etc.

In this topic, Mr. HU Aijun came to be our lecturer again. 

I didn't understand much what I really learned today.  He talked about piping techniques, making a proposal, water treatment, and factory layout all in a very detail way. We learned for more than 200 slides of PPT today. My bad, I couldn't catch up what he was saying.

But there are some important points that I highlight for today:

1. When you build a food factory you should think about the waste recycling. Either you treat it or you re-process it to other products as a side income.

2. Location of the factory is really important, the infrastructure of the areas including people around and roads are necessary.

3. Design a 10-15% minimum green area; also a space for development area. Yeah! Think big! 

4. AutoCad or AXA are factory design program which are easy to use.

The rest of it are too 'man', piping, fitting, electricity.. 

At the end of the day, me, Shaimaa, Maricruz, Masoud and Nara went to Drum tower. Well, it was a long way from Sanyuanqiao. We took a 60minutes subway and 60 minutes walking in total. Too bad, they put no light on the tower, we have no good pictures. But we enjoyed the BBQ, yang rou chuanr. My Q is "Does every BBQ taste the same in China?" Because it really tastes similar like the one we usually have in Changsha. 

And BTW, I miss Hunan food. 

 Me and Maricruz

 Maricruz, Sophak and Rithy

Shaimaa, Nara, Daoroong, Lisa, Maricruz, Sophak, Phanida, Bach

25 Oct'2011, CNRIFFI

We went to Yashow Market 雅秀市场 this morning, to the CNRIFFI 中国食品发酵工业研究院 in the afternoon and to Silk Street 秀水街 at night. It was an enjoyable day, I'm glad to visit this research institute. **)　Everybody seems to work hard and very diligent. 

China National Research Institute of Food and Fermentation Industries(CNRIFFI) is a state-level comprehensive R&D organization. They  had set up 7 R&D departments including Food Engineering, Fermentation Engineering, Brewery Engineering, Food Safety, Standard and Information, Functional Peptide Industrialization and Department of Scientific Planning and International Cooperation. National centers also attached in CNRIFFI: National Food Quality Supervision and Inspection Center, National Quality Supervision and Inspection Center for Juvenile Food, China Industry Culture Collection Center (CICC), National Standard Center of food & Fermentation Industries, National Information Center of Food & Fermentation Industries, and Productivity Promotion Center of Fermentation Industries. CNRIFFI has dedicated itself to setting up a public service center and a platform for scientific innovation; striving to promote technological development, industrial structural adjustment and contributing to the construction of a innovative nation and to the sustainable development of society.state-level comprehensive R&D organization 

Source: http://www.cnif.cn/En/index.aspx

http://www.cnif.cn/index.aspx

They are really into the liquor technology, you can smell the alcohol all around the 5th and 6th floor. They own microorganisms bank, million microorganisms have been collected for years and kept it in a very good way. As far as I can see, the working environment there is good. I wish some of my friends can work here later. 

雅秀市场, Yashow Market is located near our hotel, while 秀水 or Silk Street is located near near Wangfujing, the line 1 metro subway. To go to Silk Street, we took a subway from 三元桥 Sanyuanqiao to 永安里 Yonganli for 2 RMB and shopped for 2.5 hours. Bargain is not my favorite, still. Why? Because I understand what the sellers are saying. I really appreciate if you don't curse me. Btw, these markets are specialized to accommodate foreign customers, it's my first time to see a whole building full with foreigners in China **) and most of the sellers speak English and even other countries language. I even heard some of them use French and Russian language chatting. 

I bought Scrat from Ice Age there. Finally, he got the nut!

24 Oct'2011 Pineapple Juice, great lecturer

Great man, HU Aijun, PhD. was teaching our class today. He explained about juice processing technology, especially concentrated pineapple juice (CPJ). I bet he's a talented and great man in his field, he has done 23 projects (most of them are national projects); published more than 100 journals; written 7 books; and had more than 20 patents. Has a 7 years experience in food industry, now he is a lecturer in Tianjin Science and Technology University.

Highlights for today's class:

1. Ultrasonic usage in food preservation

2. Never forget to utilize your by-product when building food factory

3. Pineapples, Ananas comosus, is originated from South America **)

4. His CPJ project was done in Pontianak, Kalimantan Barat, Indonesia. He and his team helped PT.Agro Industri Saribumi in machine & equipment installment. It becomes the biggest CPJ factory in Asia. I never knew about this before!**)

I felt exhausted after the class, Mr. Hu spoke so fast with lots of details. I need a full concentration to make sure I wouldn't be left behind. 

time to take a rest...

**) indicates that this experience/knowledge is new for me