Hello, I am Quality Manager in a handmade shortbread biscuits factory. In our HACCP study, the cooking step is a CCP. It states that we have to cook the biscuits at 150°C during 18 min at least to eliminate the microbial flora. Unfortunately there was no temperature sensor to control it, so I bought one calibrated sensor which is recommended for HACCP. My issue is that the only possibility is to fix the sensor against the wall of the rack oven : the measured temperature is way below the real temperature (in the center of the oven).
Do people using a rotating rack oven have a simple way to fix a sensor in the middle of the oven so the temperature is more accurate? There is no way to weld a bracket because the oven is made of stainless steel... Either way it seems that the temperature inside the oven fluctuates a lot during the cooking time. Is our critical limit relevant? I have never met the person who has drawn up the HACCP study so I don't really know how she determined these limits. Only a few analysis have been conducted on our final products (microbiological analysis and aw) and the results were compliant with our standards. However I am not sure it would be sufficient for the requirement of HACCP. Would a lower temperature still be able to destroy microbiological flora (especially yeast and mould) ? Is there a study or some reliable information that could justify that we lower the critical temperature? Thanks in advance.
