Piping and pumps should have no threaded joint where foods can accumulate. Sanitary design for such equipment calls for flush joints held together by clams, allowing thorough cleaning and sanitizing.
For product likely to solidify if pumping stops, such as liquid chocolate, the throughput pipe can be equipped with a hot water jacket. Hot water jackets also prevent an accumulation of fat inside the pipe when pumping certain types of sausage meat emulsion.
Pipes that carry food materials should have no dead ends that cannot be cleaned and where food material can accumulated and decompose.
With such construction, surges in the line cause decomposed material to enter the mainstream of the food material passing through the pipes.
Any permanently installed piping system must be provided with a return cleaning line to allow complete recirculation of detergent and sanitizer solutions during cleanup.
Pipe should not be joined to tanks and hoppers, so that the pipe end extended into the tank itself. In some cases when the liquid falls below the level of the pipe, some food remains in the pipe end where it may decompose and eventually contaminate new material entering the tank.
Pipes or chutes using gravity flow should be readily demountable for cleaning and inspection. When possible, easily removed covers should be used.
Pumps, valves and pipe fittings, including those used to insert thermometers and pressure gauge bulbs, should be the sanitary take-apart type and are readily accessible or removable. Pumps must have no internal bypasses in the head that are not self-draining. The pump head itself should be self-draining.
Tanks, flumes, thermometer wells, pots and pans should have only curve corners and junctions of side and bottom in order to facilitate cleaning.
Plant sanitation: Piping and pumps
