Procedure to test production area air with agar plates
Hi, I am the QA Manager in a confectionery manufacturing company and by a stroke of luck, I fell onto this site a couple of years ago and use it quite frequently to find alot of great advise and information from some wonderful and very knowledgeable people, whom I have to say I am very thankful for. You guys have helped me survive several hard audits and I am getting ready to face another one soon. So I'm turning to you once more with a new area I don't have any idea about. I am new to all this environmental testing and we are trying to be compliant and also want to make sure our product is as safe as we can make it. I am not sure how to go about testing our air. I have ordered the agar plates but i'm not quite sure what the procedure is to use them. Do you have any guidance I can use? Thank you in advance for your help!
Bert
Well, I use 2 plates, Rose Bengal (Y&M) (pink in colour) and a TVC plate
Take the lid off, leave for an hour, put the lid back on, and incubate (Y&M 5 days, TVC 48 hours)
Easy when you know how!
Caz x
Hi, I am the QA Manager in a confectionery manufacturing company and by a stroke of luck, I fell onto this site a couple of years ago and use it quite frequently to find alot of great advise and information from some wonderful and very knowledgeable people, whom I have to say I am very thankful for. You guys have helped me survive several hard audits and I am getting ready to face another one soon. So I'm turning to you once more with a new area I don't have any idea about. I am new to all this environmental testing and we are trying to be compliant and also want to make sure our product is as safe as we can make it. I am not sure how to go about testing our air. I have ordered the agar plates but i'm not quite sure what the procedure is to use them. Do you have any guidance I can use? Thank you in advance for your help!
Bert
Dear badolan,
The requirements may also depend on who / what you are intending to satisfy ?
Rgds / Charles.C
For air test according to methods proposed by APHA,
open Petri dishes containing 20 ml of culture media (PCA, PDA, VRB or BPA)
were distributed at the processing areas and exposed for about
15 to 30 minutes. The Petri dishes were closed and incubated at
35ºC/ 48 h for aerobic plate count,
25ºC/ 3-5d for yeasts and molds,
37ºC/ 48 h for S.aureus and total coliform . Results were expressed as CFU.cm-2
,
but all are depends on what's type of microbiological that you concern for your process.
Hi,
if you just use open plates, you have to check more carefully, how air is circulation within the room. There is also the possibility to use an air-sampling device, which is pumping air onto the agar plate directly. We are using this and it is also quite comfortable. The air checked is more equal, as you can define how much of air you blow onto the plate.
Yours
Werner