I have started noticing a trend with my micros.
I blend together various raw material in dry powder form to create a protein blend product.
I usually run 2 product flavors back to back before cleaning & sani.
The products are the same with the exception of a different natural flavor component. the first is always vanilla & the second would be a flavored version.
After my product run I clean my ribbon blender with hot water in a high pressure sprayer & a soap solution. It air drys and remains in that state for a couple of day until the next run. Before the run I clean the blender with steam then spray with a quat solution at 250ppm.
I normally have good mold & yeast levels at <10.
However, the last few runs there have been an increase in mold count(one case 30 & another 100) for the first batch. while the second batch would come back <10.
I did an ATP swab test before the batch that jumped up to 30.
The results were pre sterilize: almost 4K RLU. Post sterilize: 22 RLU using a 3M clean-trace luminometer which I had recently calibrated.
Any ideas on what might be happening and what I can try to remedy the situation?
thanks