One of many final, however most important steps of growing a brand new meals product is to find out the shelf lifetime of the product. How lengthy will your scrumptious new creation final with out turning into unsafe to eat or dropping high quality? You might need encountered crusts that flip soggy, lotions that flip arduous, or fruit jams that develop molds.
However, you don’t know the best way to stop this from taking place. What’s extra, you’d need to find out about it early on within the improvement course of, not all the way in which on the finish when the product is sort of prepared for launch. That means, it wouldn’t trigger any delays, or drive you to recall any merchandise.
For a lot of of those situations, you possibly can sign and forestall the issue from taking place properly earlier than launch. All you have to know is how a lot ‘out there water’ your product accommodates. That’s, you have to know the water exercise of your product. It might provide help to predict how your product will behave over time. We’ll talk about three situations wherein moisture issues.
State of affairs 1: Stopping soggy fruit biscuits
All of us intuitively know {that a} crispy cookie with a mushy fruity filling won’t stay crispy for lengthy. The cookie typically will get soggy, whereas the fruit filling would possibly flip chewy. The identical for a freshly made cream pie, we all know the crust received’t stay crunchy for lengthy. Inside a day or two the crust will likely be mushy.
You might want to stop water motion
That is all because of the motion of water. Water will all the time transfer by means of meals merchandise, from locations the place there’s lots of out there water, to locations the place there’s not as a lot. Water likes to distribute itself evenly. In our biscuits, water strikes from the mushy fruit filling to the crunchy cookie. Within the pie, water strikes from the filling to the crust.
If you do not need this water motion to occur, it’s a must to be sure that the ‘water exercise’ of each elements is identical. Water exercise is a measure of the quantity of accessible water in a product. If the water exercise of your crust and fruit filling are the identical, water received’t transfer.
Fortunately, it is extremely straightforward to measure the water exercise of most meals. A easy water exercise meter can decide the water exercise inside a couple of minutes, by merely putting a pattern of the product in a measurement cup.
How to make sure equal water exercise values
If the water exercise of your two elements is a good distance aside it’s a must to begin altering your product. There are lots of methods to take action. For example, you possibly can add extra sugar to your fruity filling. Sugar binds water, and makes it much less prone to transfer. Or, you possibly can go for modifying your cookie model to make it moister from the onset. Alternatively, you possibly can add a barrier in between the fruity filling and the biscuit, to make it tougher for the moisture to maneuver.
There are a lot of choices, we’ve mentioned a number of intimately in “Stopping Soggy Pie Crusts“. However, all depend on understanding the water exercise of your elements first, to strategically enhance the product.
State of affairs 2: Making certain an extended shelf life
Microorganisms can spoil our meals, making it dangerous or simply unappetizing to eat. Similar to people, microorganisms want water to develop and thrive. If there’s not sufficient water, they will’t develop. This gives meals producers with an effective way for guaranteeing an extended shelf of their merchandise. As soon as the water exercise of your product is under a sure threshold, it may be stored for a really very long time, with none microorganisms rising on it.
Micro organism are most straightforward to cease this fashion. They cease rising at water exercise values under roughly 0,87. Molds and yeasts want much less water and received’t cease rising till values under 0,60. By once more measuring the water exercise of your product, you’ll know whether or not or not microorganisms can nonetheless develop, and in that case, which.
To make sure no microorganisms can develop, you’ll have to decrease the water exercise sufficiently. Once more, there are a number of methods to take action. For one, you possibly can lower the quantity of water, for example by baking or frying a product. Or, you possibly can add elements that maintain on to water, guaranteeing that it’s not out there to make use of by microorganisms. Sugar is nice at holding onto water and one of many causes {that a} product like fruit jam accommodates an affordable quantity of sugar.
State of affairs 3: Making certain powders don’t clump
Milk powder, icing sugar, and wheat flour are all presupposed to be mushy free-flowing, easy powders. Nevertheless, if not saved accurately, they will begin to kind clumps. These clumps won’t be an enormous problem if utilized by shoppers at dwelling. You possibly can break them by hand, or just work your means round them. However, in lots of larger-scale manufacturing services, clumped powders can wreak havoc. Powders could not move by means of pipes, or get caught in feeders.
The shape you’ve gotten chosen doesn’t exist.
Clumping of powders occurs as a result of the powders soak up water. The water causes the person particles to stay collectively and kind a clump.
Whether or not powders soak up moisture is determined by the quantity of moisture within the powder itself, the quantity of moisture within the surrounding air and on the powder properties itself. Some powders are much more inclined to turning into clumpy than others. Icing sugar and milk powder for example are each extra inclined to forming clumps than wheat flour is.
On this occasion, you once more will need to know extra in regards to the water exercise of your product. However, on this occasion, the evaluation is barely extra sophisticated. You’ll need to know the connection between the quantity of water within the air and the quantity of water in your product. You are able to do so by making an isotherm. It’s a barely extra superior methodology, once more primarily based on water exercise.
As soon as underneath which circumstances your powder begins to clump, you can begin stopping it from taking place. You would possibly want to regulate your packaging, or the storage circumstances. Or, you would possibly want so as to add an anti-clumping agent (which you’ll typically see added to icing sugar).
Why Moisture Issues
Powders that clump throughout storage. Pie crusts or cookies that flip soggy throughout shelf life. Or merchandise that spoil too quick. As a meals maker, you need to keep away from these from taking place, ideally, properly earlier than your product has launched.
The issue is, moisture strikes or permits the expansion of microorganisms. If it occurs, you would possibly have to recall merchandise, or change the best-by dates.
Nevertheless, if you happen to do a easy evaluation to find out the water exercise of your merchandise, you possibly can repair the issues, earlier than they happen. It gives you a transparent route as to the best way to change your product, or perhaps the packaging, to make sure your product stays good.
Suppose moisture may be providing you with hassle? And need a second pair of brains to assist brainstorm options? Simply ship me a message, I’d love to debate your challenges.
