Compressed Air Test Units
Hello:
We produce salad dressing and use compressed air at point of contact..... We are considering purchasing our own Compressed Air Test Unit since our auditor told us that we need to be testing our compressed air at point of contact once every quarter....We just became HACCP certified in February, 2015. Looking at the CAMTU -C01-0128....by Parker Balston...Has anyone used this unit? or is there a unit you have used that worked well? We just did a compressed air test using an RCS device with the agar strips...But I'm thinking there should be a better way.... I have read a lot of the links here on compressed air, understand why we need to do this...just need to know which device is the best to use.... Thanks in advance for any advice or direction.....
Hi Sail,
One of the sponsors of this forum, Trace Analytics has subject matter expertise in this area. I've noticed that the sponsors even participate in the forum now and again and it may not be too difficult to pose your question directly to them.
regards
I will...I have read quite a few of their posts too.
Thanks!!
sail 1234
what is the use of compressed air at the contact point ,why don,t you use nitrogen which is inert in nature .
if you using compressed air, than test for micribiological tpc & yeast mold.oil & grease.
thanks
bhatnagar
Thank you for your advice....We use compressed air to blow out the inverted jars right before filling. We would like to purchase our own equipment to capture the compressed air sample and would like to know if anyone uses a particular model to do this. We have tested once using an RCS device with agar strips and tested for APC, yeast & mold. We use food grade oil. We are a small facility and this is uncharted territory for us. I will research your suggestion about using nitrogen. This is a new idea that I have not yet heard of.
Thank you very much.
I have looked at the Palmer Balston unit and think it is kind of expensive for what you get and does not work in many applications.
Hi Sail,
One of the sponsors of this forum, Trace Analytics has subject matter expertise in this area. I've noticed that the sponsors even participate in the forum now and again and it may not be too difficult to pose your question directly to them.
regards
No offense intended to Trace, but they extremely expensive.
sail 1234
what is the use of compressed air at the contact point ,why don,t you use nitrogen which is inert in nature .
if you using compressed air, than test for micribiological tpc & yeast mold.oil & grease.
thanks
Most auditors treat nitrogen as a compressed air and want to see it tested as well.
There was a great thread here, but can't find it with a testing procedure. It used white cloth to test for oil and water and then collecting samples with either agar or in bags with sponges. Some digging might turn it up.
But the above method works well and is a lot cheaper....relatively speaking.
Hi sail,
I got the impression from previous threads here that very few people were analysing in-house. And the impression that SQF's requirements for CA are sort of "ad hoc", with respect to both filtration levels and quality limits, eg plate counts. Possibly another reason to pass the buck to outside labs. :smile:
I can appreciate that for yr process, ensuring CA control is important. In-house investment depends on various factors, cost, ease of measurement, tech. backup, validation of methodology, degree of variation/proximity of quality data to target limits. It all depends.
Hi Charles C.
I have reached out to Trace Analytics and I must say their customer service is excellent. You said a key word, SQF, we just became HACCP certified and are NOT going SQF at this point and I am still wondering where our auditor came up with testing compressed air once a quarter for HACCP. I haven't found any written requirements on that. Thanks for weighing in on this subject...very helpful.
Thanks to all, this forum is extremely helpful!! So glad I found it!