Cooking in chemical pulp production has many similarities with cooking of food. Without good raw material, it is difficult to obtain a high-quality result. The wood chips used should be of high quality and fresh.
Many wood species are ideal for making pulp. Broad-leaf trees (hardwood) and coniferous trees (softwood) is a basic division. In general, hardwoods give short fibers and softwoods long fibers for paper and board making. Thanks to plant breeding, different types of wood have been developed with perfect properties for producing pulp. Did you know that there are eucalyptus species that can be harvested after just seven years?
The wood arrives at the pulp mill as logs, which are then debarked and chipped into chips in the mill’s wood handling line. A part of the wood raw material can also be delivered as chips from a sawmill. If the wood dries out too much, it is more difficult to use for producing pulp. If it is left lying for too long, it starts to decompose, causing losses in yield. Using the raw material in the best possible way demands great care and the right knowledge.
No, but it sets higher demands on the pulp mill’s processes and equipment. Valmet’s continuous kraft cooking method, CompactCooking™, has been developed to be more forgiving and handle larger variations of the raw material and larger wood chips than competing systems. Among the things making this possible, CompactCooking™ has an extra-long and precise impregnation of the raw material.
Excellent raw material does not need much help from spices, sauces or anything else. Salt and pepper may be all that is needed. A beef steak just off the grill or an oven-baked fish speak for themselves, as long as the raw ingredients are top-class and the preparation correctly balanced.
Each season has a lot to offer. When you select the season’s best and freshest raw ingredients, you obtain a natural variation while the food turns out genuinely tasty. Make sure your raw ingredients are fresh and stored correctly until you are ready to cook them.
Dare to try something new! Take a vegetable, fish or a piece of meat you are not used to. Or go to a farm and buy your meat and vegetables straight from the farmer instead of the supermarket. The food you serve will be at its best when you are generous with top-notch ingredients.
