Heat Induction Liner Seal Integrity Verification
Hi! I am new to this forum (been reading it for a while, but just recently registered) so please excuse me if I'm posting this in the wrong place.
I am hot filling/inverting hot sauce in glass bottles with a plastic lid and heat induction liner. This is a CCP and I am trying to include in this step a verification process for ensuring that the induction liner is sealed properly.
I am a very small operation using a hand-held induction machine and do not have the resources for expensive testing machinery.
Does anyone have any experience with this type of closure on a small scale and what do you do to check the seal integrity, if anything?
I am used to metal caps with plastisol liners that are easily visually inspected.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Hi, welcome to the forum,
We are also using induction sealing for our PET jars and glass bottles filled with food supplements. Currently we are monitoring the integrity of seal by visual observation by squeezing the jar, in case of glass bottles we just tap on the seal and check for any leakage.
We are also monitoring power percentage which is shown on the induction sealing machine, we have fixed 95-100% for PET jars and 80-85% for glass bottles.
I made this step as OPRP, earlier it was CCP but one of our auditors objected, the reason he gave is that this step is necessary for our process and also part of the process where we are not removing any hazard nor we are preventing he said. I do not understand why he objected it to be a CCP.
Regards
Mahantesh
Thank you Mahantesh!
This may be a silly question, but for what percentage of bottles are you performing this manual "tap" test? Since the cap is already on, it seems to me that to remove the cap, perform the test, and replace the cap on every bottle would increase the processing time (and cost) significantly.
Much obliged,
PL
Thank you Mahantesh!
This may be a silly question, but for what percentage of bottles are you performing this manual "tap" test? Since the cap is already on, it seems to me that to remove the cap, perform the test, and replace the cap on every bottle would increase the processing time (and cost) significantly.
Much obliged,
PL
Hi,
We check 5 bottles/jars every 30 minutes intervals during production.
Yes, as you said, we have to remove the cap, tap it and check for integrity and replace the cap, these tested samples will not go waste, we put them back in the line. If any seal integrity issues found then we put them in waste and action taken accordingly.
regards
Mahantesh
We actually have to remove the cap and liner to inspect the contents...........so yes the cap is waste and the bottle goes back through the process
Do you conduct metal detection tests on the bottles? If so, do you do this post filling but prior to sealing with the magnetic seal, cap and then do the test you mention in this post?