Egg rework

Hi everyone

It would be great and much helpful if I can get som advice regarding egg rework

we produce bake off products and our customers have recently desired that the products we sell to them should be sprayed with egg mixture (eg + potable water). There will be of course a lot of egg mixture that will end up not on the products and the idea is to recirculate the egg mixture (mainly for economical reasons). 

here comes the dilema: our egg is stored at controled temperature - what about egg circuit? - should it also be temperature controled?

Is it bossible to recircuit egg in general and what are the risks in this kind of process? 

My idea is to make a detailed risk assessment with an eventual product testing/egg mixture testing so that I can eliminate the risks of pathogen development -  and also estblish a working procedure with time table of how long should we run rework egg (frequency of making a new mixture with totaly "new" raw materials - free of recircuit)

Am I wrong am I write ???? how to tackle this???

thanks in advance!

Kind regards, 

Tatiana

Perhaps someone from confectionaries could weigh in? Would be a similar system to a "chocolate waterfall" I would assume.

My gut says yes, you would want this recirculation in a refrigerated room or in a refrigerated loop to keep the product at a safe temperature.

Gut feel is you'd want to recirc chilled if you can or limit the usage time but it may be for quality not food safety.  Unless you get growth of spore formers or toxins, the cooking temperature should be pretty safe.  Your main micro risks may be limiting access to "take off" staff to the raw egg and controlling who fills and interacts with the glaze to ensure you don't get post cook contamination.  Possibly buy in "pasteurised egg" for this?  But one consideration is if you don't chill that it may develop off flavour notes. 

Another "process" thought though is testing how chill temperatures impact the glaze as it will, presumably thicken it?

Interesting you posted this in allergens though.  It's obviously not only pathogens to consider.  Egg is a potent allergen and one which is very difficult to remove.  Will you be running non egg products on this line?  If so how will you control cross contamination?  Ideas could include to only run non egg products after a cleaning shift and first on the line, to only have the egg glaze machinery "charged" with egg when running on egg products and fully cleaned (and / or) removed when running non egg.  Validation, verification etc, etc.
 

Having used a similar system in another life, we used a chilled recirc system which was CIP'd daily and tested to ensure was clean and also free from chemicals. There was a very limited shelf life of the mix (pasteurized egg included in the recipe) and we would only do batch sizes that would fit the run. We felt that as it was a high enough risk in our particular situation not to blend / rework previous batches as a greater volume of product would be effected if there was a problem. There was extensive work done on validation of cleaning and life / quality of mixes in rework / non-rework situations. 

As said above, cross contamination is a potential risk and we used specific equipment for non-egg/egg but we had that luxury that you may not, again validation needs to take place.

J

What is the mixture?

Raw egg (whole) or raw white, or raw yolk?

Or is the egg powdered, flaked, etc and then mixed with water?

What are the other ingredients in the mixture if any?

What is the mixture?

 

Raw egg (whole) or raw white, or raw yolk?

 

Or is the egg powdered, flaked, etc and then mixed with water?

 

What are the other ingredients in the mixture if any?

The mixture consist of pasteurisered whole egg and water. The same egg is used as an ingredient in the product. 

 

Gut feel is you'd want to recirc chilled if you can or limit the usage time but it may be for quality not food safety.  Unless you get growth of spore formers or toxins, the cooking temperature should be pretty safe.  Your main micro risks may be limiting access to "take off" staff to the raw egg and controlling who fills and interacts with the glaze to ensure you don't get post cook contamination.  Possibly buy in "pasteurised egg" for this?  But one consideration is if you don't chill that it may develop off flavour notes. 

 

Another "process" thought though is testing how chill temperatures impact the glaze as it will, presumably thicken it?

 

Interesting you posted this in allergens though.  It's obviously not only pathogens to consider.  Egg is a potent allergen and one which is very difficult to remove.  Will you be running non egg products on this line?  If so how will you control cross contamination?  Ideas could include to only run non egg products after a cleaning shift and first on the line, to only have the egg glaze machinery "charged" with egg when running on egg products and fully cleaned (and / or) removed when running non egg.  Validation, verification etc, etc.
 

 

 

 

Thanks for the answer :) the product that must be glazed with the egg mixture contains egg as an ingredient. we have also similar products but without egg. we are good at planning the production of egg/non egg containing products but we have also labeled with traces of egg (after lab analysis)