Satron ensures perfect desserts with content sensors
Satron’s multi-wavelength optical sensor helps dessert manufacturers overcome the limitations of a single-wavelength sensor by correctly detecting the water content in a dark dessert .
Custard-like dairy puddings, which typically comprise 60 to 90% milk, are increasingly popular and often targeted to adults as luxury desserts.
The thickening of these products, for example with egg yolk, corn starch, gelatine or carrageenans (thickeners made from red seaweeds) makes them susceptible to even small quantities of water. Water contamination as low as 10%, causes texture changes to the finished product and therefore risks causing consumer complaints.
Satron notes that manufacturers face a particular challenge when they switch between product variants or finish a production run, because of using water to push the product. There is a balance between the risk of water reaching the potting line and contaminating the desserts against the wasting of valuable good products if the switch is done too early and saleable pudding sent to waste, which also incurs a disposal cost.
In the below image, whilst the pot on the left is perfect, only a few moments later, a small amount of water has been included in the right-hand pudding, forming water droplets on the surface and unappetising cosmetic irregularities.
To use visual control to switch on or off the potting line, the process line must be configured to err on the side of caution and so lock in a certain amount of product loss. In this example, Satron found the customer wanted to reliably reduce product losses whilst ensuring that water contamination was kept below the 10% level which risked consumer complaints.
Satron’s VOA turbidity and solids content sensor detects the 10% water threshold, even in difficult applications like chocolate, because it is a multi-wavelength optical sensor.
Single-wavelength optical sensors, whether using Infrared (IR) or visual light can give false readings for example when water is added to chocolate pudding – the addition of water causes the chocolate dessert to turn a lighter colour, increasing reflectivity, thus providing a stronger signal from a single-wavelength sensor, which falsely implies less water content.
In the graph, Satron’s VOA multi-wavelength sensor can be seen to report a decreasing signal if water is present and as its percentage increases. Satron’s single-wavelength VOM sensor however is confused by the whitening effect of adding 10% water to the Choco pudding and initially, the graph shows the sensor output increasing, falsely implying less water content.
The versatility of the VOA multi-wavelength turbidity and solids content sensor can generate significant product and cost savings for dairy producers across a wide range of products and also ensures consumer satisfaction.
