Vertical Plate Freezers

Why use the Freezertech Vertical Plate Freezer?

We’re able to offer brand new Freezertech vertical plate freezers, built by our ex Jackstone Froster engineers, using the same original materials and equipment, or alternatively we also deal in used and second hand genuine Jackstone / Jackstone Froster plate freezers, fully refurbished by ourselves.

Our vertical plate freezer is engineered to be 100% compatible with all previous Jackstone Froster plate freezers, matching and improving on the performance of the original design.  All the specifications listed here are applicable for both Freezertech and our used Jackstone Froster plate freezers.

The vertical plate freezer consists of a number of plates, mounted vertically, through which refrigerant is passed. The product is simply poured into the pockets between the plates and is frozen. The Freezertech vertical plate freezer is available in 50, 75 and 100mm block thicknesses for easy unloading and storage.

The vertical plate freezer is a leading freezer in our range as it enables rapid freezing of raw food products through its direct contact method of freezing, which offers a significant energy saving and reduced freezing time over traditional air blast freezers. These cost savings are also benefitted by the fact the product is poured directly into the freezer, not requiring expensive packaging which can increase freezing time and is liable to get damaged during use.The Freezertech vertical plate freezer is of significant importance in the raw frozen foods industry, where lack of packaging means the product has to be well contained within the freezer, and the rapid dual-contact freezing action is essential to avoid discolouration, enzymatic and cellular breakdown in the food products, significantly ones with high water content where ice crystal formation from slow freezing becomes a problem.

Freezing at sea in Horizontal Plate Freezers can be labour intensive and has relatively high space requirements. The vertical plate freezer was originally developed by Jackstone to enable distant water trawlers to freezer the whole of their catch at sea using the minimum of labour within the confines of a fishing vessel. In the standard vertical plate freezer the fish is simply poured between the vertically arranged freezing plates and “L” shaped lifting arms. At the end of the freezing process, a quick 2-3minute hot gas defrost is required to break the ice bond between the naked product and the freezing plate, and then the product is automatically lifted from the plate area ready for unloading, either manually or with automatic systems available.

Automation of Plate Freezers

Both the horizontal and vertical plate freezers are loaded and unloaded by hand, a process which can place great strain on the operators. Vertical plate freezers are now available to assist in automated loading and unloading with the Flowmaster and Vertical Bottom Discharge models. As well as this, Freezertech can help with factory layouts, and recommend excellent automatic loading / unloading system engineers who have experience with our and all Jackstone Froster vertical plate freezers

Advantages of Vertical Plate Freezer

• Easy loading by hand – offal
• Easy loading by pump – minced produce
• Easy loading by conveyor & chute – fish
• Freezing into blocks – Flat & uniform, easy to unload, efficient to stack, package & transport
• Ergonomic load and unload heights and divided stations enable manageable block combinations
• Automated marine use – Flowmaster vertical, low height for confined spaces
• Automated land use – Vertical Bottom discharge – allows loading and unloading spaces to be separate
• Low freezing and maintenance costs – Minimal energy consumption, easy installation to refrigeration plant
• Preserves product quality and minimises production cycle times – Dual contact rapid freezing

Design and build specifications

• Freezertech offer the complete range of vertical plate freezers from 12 to 40 stations with block sizes 50 to 100mm.
• All Freezertech verticals are designed to be compatible with, and match and improve on the performance and capability of the original Jackstone design – a quality design with a tried and tested history.
• The frames are constructed of galvanized box section as standard – very robust and easy to clean.
• All pipe work, fixings, cylinders, headers and hoses are stainless steel as standard.
• The manifold control block can be either lever control or solenoid operated (24V – 240V AC/DC)
• The lifting arm covers can be either food grade plastics or aluminium
• We are also proud to offer Stainless Steel frames with galvanised lifting arms (Stainless Steel arms optional extra)

Vertical Flowmaster

The Flowmaster is a variation on the standard vertical plate freezer design.  The vertical flowmaster plate freezer has an increased load / unload height, and more importantly, incorporates a flat top design to enable semi and fully automatic unloading onto conveyor systems via an ejection frame mounted onto the top.

The flat top freezer design allows the frozen blocks to be simply pushed off the freezer onto  a conveyor belt system via the automatic ejection assembly, saving time and labour costs.

Fluidmaster

The Freezertech Fluidmaster is another variation on the original Jackstone vertical plate freezer, based on either the standard vertical freezer or the Flowmaster type design.  The Fluidmaster is designed with adjustable front spacers to create a tighter seal and minimise drip loss when freezing fluids.

Not having to individually wrap and bag fluids prior to freezing allows greater factory efficiency with reduced labour costs, fluids can be pumped directly into the Fluidmaster plate freezer and immediately frozen with mimimal drip loss.

Fluid loss can be further reduced by opting for the extra stainless steel drip tray to allow waste product recycling.

Blockmaster

The Freezertech Blockmaster is another variation on the original Jackstone Vertical Plate Freezer design, this model allows 2 different block thicknesses to be used in the same freezer, either as a 25 station 3″ model or as a 20 station 4″ model, ideal for factories dealing with different seasonal products which require different block sizes

Vertical Plate Freezer Photos