In all areas of the food industry, from inspection of goods to quality control, production and storage, to the development of new products, moisture analysis plays a vital role.The prepared ingredients have the best moisture content in almost all cases, providing the best possible taste, consistency, appearance and shelf life.
Why are moisture analyzers used?
- One of the most significant concepts in the industry is knowing about the moisture content of the materials used throughout the snack and baking process.
- Though water is an essential requirement in many commercial food products, it can pose safety and quality problems when there is too little or too much.
- It is why food testing laboratories rely heavily on the analysis of moisture during the initial phase of product research and development and later in quality testing laboratories.
- It is essential to maintain the correct moisture levels using moisture analyzers for food industry for safe food products and also to determine the shelf life and expiry dates of the product, which help to ensure food freshness, flavor, and stability.
How to measure the moisture content in the food?
- The standard procedure typically involves loss of drying with the drying oven. Since this is a time – consuming procedure, the halogen moisture analyzer is often used as a fast, accurate and reliable tool to measure the moisture content of food.
- These analyzers have an electronic balance with a sample tray and heating element surrounding them.
- The sample can be quickly heated under microprocessor control, which is calculated by moisture loss rates known as a desiccation curve before the end of the process.
- However, for all materials, there is no standard drying condition or time. For each product, the optimal drying conditions have to be determined individually.
Moisture analyzers are particularly useful in laboratory food testing because they can measure humidity levels inside products thus ensuring that they maintain correct levels of moisture for food products such as bread and biscuits to prevent contamination or bacterial growth. Some of the moisture analyzer equipment is https://www.dscbalances.com/.