Planetary Stirring Steam Jacketed Cooking Kettle 600L SUS304 Tilting Discharge

This 600 litre steam jacketed cooking kettle was built for the way sauce and jam plants actually run: a shift starts with a cold charge, the jacket has to recover fast, and nobody wants to stop the line because product scorched on the inner wall. The body is a semi-spherical shell stamped from a single SUS304 blank and welded to a 2 mm outer jacket, so the steam sits in a full wrap around the product instead of only under the bottom head. That geometry, combined with a planetary agitator running on a non-integer revolution-to-rotation ratio, is what keeps thick mashes and high-solids sauces moving without a dead zone in the centre of the pot.

We build these kettles in our own workshop in Shandong with 100 to 120 staff and a dedicated stainless fabrication bay. Shells are formed on a 1200 mm press, jacket seams are argon welded and then dye-penetrant inspected, and every unit is hydro-tested at 0.45 MPa before it leaves the floor. Because roughly 75 percent of our output ships outside China, the machines are wired for the destination market from the start: 380 V three phase 50 Hz for most of Asia, Africa and Europe, 220 V single phase on request, UL-listed contactors where a customer asks for them.

• Planetary stirring without dead angles: The agitator combines a slow revolution with a faster rotation at a non-integer ratio, so the scraper sweeps a new path on every pass. Products that normally bridge in the centre, such as bean paste, chilli paste and caramel, keep flowing to the wall.
• Full-wrap steam jacket: Steam is fed into the 2 mm jacket around both the shell and the bottom head. With 0.3 MPa saturated steam the charge reaches cooking temperature noticeably faster than a direct-fired pot, and heat input is even along the whole inner surface, so there is no hot band near the burner line.
• PTFE scraper with adjustable clearance: The scraper blade is set to a 3 to 5 mm clearance from the shell and can be re-shimmed on site when it wears. This is the single most common cause of burnt-on layers in kettles that are two or three years old, and it is a ten-minute job on this design.
• All wetted parts in SUS304: Shell, agitator, shaft, discharge valve and lid are 304 stainless, with 316L available for brine, vinegar-heavy or high-chloride recipes. Internal welds are ground and passivated, and there is no exposed carbon steel in the product path.
• Hydraulic tilting discharge: The pot tilts to 90 degrees on a hydraulic cylinder, which empties a 600 L batch of viscous paste in a few minutes and lets the operator hose the shell down without standing over the mouth. Manual worm-gear tilting is also available at a lower price point.
• Variable speed drive 0 to 60 rpm: A frequency inverter on the 2.2 kW stirring motor lets the operator slow the agitator during filling and speed it up during the thickening stage, which matters when a jam or fruit prep needs gentle handling early and strong shear later.
• Digital control with recipe memory: Temperature, stirring speed and cooking time are set on a panel with PID control on the steam valve. Ten recipes can be stored, so a shift change does not mean re-typing setpoints.

This capacity suits plants running between two and eight tonnes of finished product per shift. Typical duty includes chilli sauce and bean paste, where the scraper keeps solids off the wall; fruit jam and fruit prep, where gentle early stirring protects piece integrity; caramel, fondant and candy masses, where even jacket heat prevents local burning; and meat, bean and chicken stews for ready-meal and pet food lines, where the tilting discharge empties chunky product cleanly. Institutional kitchens and central kitchen operations also use the 600 L size as a single-batch soup and broth vessel, and dairy processors run it for condensed milk and cream reduction with the 316L option.

If your recipe is thinner than 3000 cP, a simple anchor or paddle agitator may be enough, and we will say so rather than sell you a planetary drive you do not need. If it is above 20000 cP, or contains solids that settle, the planetary scraper is the right choice, and the jacket pressure should be confirmed against your steam supply before the order is fixed.

Each kettle is wrapped in protective film, foam-padded at the jacket flanges and control panel, and crated in an export-grade plywood case with a steel base. The crate carries the lifting points, the hydro test record and the wiring diagram; the CE declaration and material certificates travel in a document pocket inside the lid. Loading is done by us at the factory, and we send photographs of the packed unit and the container loading to the buyer before the vessel sails.

Warranty is 12 months from commissioning or 15 months from shipment, whichever comes first, excluding the scraper blade and seal set, which are wear parts. Spare scraper blades, seals and heating elements are kept in stock and ship within three working days. We provide remote commissioning support over video call, and the panel setpoints, steam valve trim and inverter parameters are documented in English so a local technician can service the machine without waiting on us. For orders of three units or more, an engineer can attend site for installation and operator training.

Note: final jacket pressure, voltage and agitator configuration are confirmed against the buyer's steam supply and recipe viscosity before production. Dimensions are nominal and may vary slightly with the ordered options.