Baking & Baking Mixes
Near-infrared (NIR) technology has been used in the food, feed, and agriculture industries for over 50 years as a way to analyze for properties such as moisture, protein, fat, fiber, ash, amino acids, and more. Qualitative NIR analysis is widely used in the food, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries. NIR testing is fast (analysis in seconds), accurate, safe, usually nondestructive and requires minimal sample preparation with no reagents. NIR is extremely flexible and can be configured for the analysis of solids, liquids, oils, slurries, and suspensions. Accuracy is often equivalent to the wet chemical methods that it replaces. Its precision is almost always better. Other processes that can be used during the manufacturing process are wet chemistry analysis and image analysis.
The challenge to all baking mix manufacturers in today’s economy is to operate plants as efficiently as possible, with a focus on quality and keeping costs in check. Classical analytical tests and/or baking tests to analyze that the baking mix has been mixed properly and all major components have been added can take hours to complete with high costs for reagents and consumable items. Sites without on-site analytical laboratories may have to send samples to outside laboratories, which can take days to return results. Such time lag can hurt plant efficiency by causing product to be held in quarantine until these tests are completed.
How can Qualitative NIR be used for baking mix manufacturing?
In most baking mix operations, ingredients are added by weight to very large mixers ranging anywhere from 1,000-20,000 lbs. Once all ingredients have been added (either by an automated system or by an operator dumping material into a mixer), the mixer is started.
Typically, a mix is judged to be completely mixed either by an experienced operator pronouncing it “mixed” or by taking the mix and baking it to make sure that the final product will bake properly. Having an operator subjectively determine that a mix is finished is dangerous. There is no guarantee that the mixer operator will be accurate. Even the most seasoned operators can make mistakes. Once the material in the mixer has been sent to packaging, there is no retrieving it. This means that any bad batch will have to be thrown away, wasting money.
Having to bake each batch in the mixer is also not desirable as it may take over an hour before results are available. This lost efficiency leads to fewer batches being produced and has a direct negative financial impact on the plant.
These methods also do not lend themselves to proper documentation. Government regulations and the threat of future legal action are increasingly requiring companies to provide documentation for each batch that is manufactured.
Qualitative NIR can be used directly on the mixing floor to determine that major ingredients, such as sugar, flour, and lard, have been added to the mix in their proper proportions and that the mix has been mixed for the proper amount of time. Samples that have not been mixed properly will not bake up properly, causing the consumer to receive bad product.
Samples pulled from the mixer are analyzed on the NIR instrument and compared to a database of “good” product. The software that drives the instrument will then tell the operator whether the sample matches the “good” product, giving a pass result, or does not match, yielding a fail result.
Since results are generated in approximately 30 seconds, a quick decision can be made as to whether the mix is complete or needs to be mixed longer. All results are documented and stored with date and time stamps on the instrument, giving documentation for every batch that is produced by the plant.
What is the cost justification for using Qualitative NIR?
NIR provides excellent payback for the baking mix manufacturer. The use of NIR ensures consistent quality for each mix by ensuring that all major components have been added and that the product was produced with optimal mixing. The speed of analysis reduces the mixing time, reduces the potential for over-mixing, and helps to increase the efficiency of the plant.
Results of using the Unity Scientific SpectraStar 2400 NIR analyzer for muffin mix analysis.
A calibration was developed for a specific muffin mix. A set of known, “good” muffin mix samples was scanned and compared to a set of muffin mix samples that were know to be bad. These bad samples were created by excluding major components or by under/over mixing.
The following figure shows how qualitative NIR can be used to differentiate between a good mix and a bad mix. The figure shows that the SpectraStar can see the difference between a good and bad mix. This is seen by the two distinct clusters of samples, one for good material and one for bad.
Figure 1.Qualitative plot of “Good” vs. “Bad” Baking Mix
The SpectraStar 2400 – NIR Made Easy
The Unity Scientific SpectraStar 2400 is a NIR scanning monochromator system designed for running quantitative and qualitative applications in the food, feed, and agricultural industries. The SpectraStar 2400 is an economical investment delivering scanning monochromator technology at filter technology pricing. Excellent payback and low cost of ownership make the SpectraStar a sound investment. The SpectraStar has incorporated ease into every aspect of its design.