Process and quality control of glass closures in salsa making

Hello all,

I have under 6 months in current site and am trying to tighten up process testing/record keeping.  In my process (salsa making), I am required to take Better Process Controls for acidified foods.  Our company is postponing the event until mid April so I have been doing a lot of self education.

I was wondering if anyone has a template for glass closures for their process that I can view?  I realized that mine is not compliant to FDA standard.  Our frequency is every 15 minute visual on glass and threading, 30 minute checks on vaccum seasl/torque but did not realize that there was a "tear down" required. 

I am not sure what the tear down consisted of so was curious to see an example.

Thanks

-DeAnn

Tear down is simply opening the jar and doing an inspection of the jar finish and impression on the seal of the jar.

I'm in Canada, so the rules are a bit different (and we run small batches only) so we inspected jars every 1/2 during production and 2 jars from each batch are "tear downs"

Out of curiosity, do you use steam with the capper? and why/why not? 

Thanks Scampi.

We previously did manual process.  Or when I started it was mainly manual.  Since October we started using a Massily steam capper.  

I created paperwork for filler operators that consisted of 30 minute checks for visual inspection of glass, net weight, vaccum and torque but with the potential of expansion and an additional filler operator, I wanted to begin tweeking paperwork and be more compliant.  

That's an expensive machine!!!  It's way out of our $$$ league for right now.

I'm assuming you have container checks prior to filling as well, and that you are monitoring you're failures (caps and broken jars) daily. Are you cold filling then? 

Sorry for the questions.......I'm working with a Canadian program to evaluate the possibility of removing our water bath altogether, and obviously I will need to create the seal another way........i'm hoping I will just need a vacuum capper as they are significantly cheaper than steam cappers.

Are you measuring headspace? It's another check you can do that proves your company takes the processing safety seriously. You'd need to get a fancy slide measure that can hook on the rim of the jar and measure mm to the top of the salsa.

Do you check seal integrity again at labeling/boxing?

Not sure if this will help or not since our salsa are in plastic bottles - hot filled. We have a capper machine then sealed with an Enercon induction sealer. A production worker is stationed between the capper and sealer to ensure the lids are on correctly before going under the sealer. Jars are visually checked for the seal with more being checked at the start of production by the person boxing the product.

That does help, thank you. I will know better once my scientific evaluation is complete which way I need to go. I will google that type

Well our volume does not really require the machine.  The business is shifting from largely pickled products to sauces and another scope entirely.  It has been rather impressive minus the fact that it was purchased prior to my hire and chasing down literature/knowledge and feedback from the supplier has been slow.  

We do container checks prior to filling, every 15 minutes.  We monitor failures on packaging end (they note the product they remove prior to casing).  We only have 1 cold fill product on our end.  

We do check headspace/torque on line.  Just need to add that 4 hour check required.  

Yea I need to work on my seal integrity for induction sealer for our potential food service client...it kinda worries me since one of our RD runs had some spoilage after 3 months due to faulty seals. 

From what I read really quickly about induction sealers is that the best seal comes from a completely dry surface on the container..........any residue at all and you get seal failures.

 Now that I've read up (even if we could) this is not the kind of machine we need

Although, i don't know how well they work at all now that I'm thinking..........i can't tell you the # of dry items (spices/medications) where the seal was only attached about 1/2 way round.....

Hi DeAnn,

Your capper supplier (Massilly) would be a great resource for vacuum, pull-up and seal-security (the measurements you should be obtaining on metal closures). Your BPCS manual has this info:

https://www.fda.gov/...s/ucm072694.htm

A good vacuum gauge can be obtained from WACO:

http://www.wacolab.c... Test Apparatus

Please let me know if I can assist any further.....I have years of salsa jarring experience.

SS