Source: Link Testing instruments Co.,Ltd
What should I do if the packaging of meat products swells after cooking and sterilization?
The packaging of finished meat products after cooking and sterilization often has the phenomenon of bulging bags. In severe cases, bags may even break in the cooking and sterilizing equipment. The reason for this phenomenon is usually the improper pressure control of the sterilizing equipment during the sterilization process. During the sterilization process, the sterilization temperature is high, the moisture, oil and other components in the meat products are heated and vaporized, and the residual gas in the package is heated and expanded, so the pressure in the package will increase accordingly. The sterilization equipment controls a certain pressure, on the one hand, it can quickly reach the required sterilization temperature, and on the other hand, it can be balanced with the pressure in the packaging to prevent the packaging bag from being deformed, swollen, or even broken. Therefore, in the process of retort sterilization, the control of pressure in the sterilization equipment is very important.
How to solve the problem of leakage at both ends of the sausage package sealed with aluminum buckle?
Quality issues:
The two ends of the sausage package sealed with aluminum buckles often leak due to poor sealing, causing mold on both ends of the sausage.
Cause Analysis:
(1) Packaging materials
• Poor flexibility - high brittleness and breakage of packaging material during kinking with aluminum buckles. It can be verified by tensile, elongation and elastic modulus, pendulum impact energy test.
(2) Finished product packaging and processing
• The kinking force of the aluminum buckle is not appropriate - that is, the aluminum buckle is twisted too tightly or too loosely, resulting in damage to the packaging material or poor sealing of the finished package, which can cause leakage at both ends of the sausage.
Expert advice:
——Pay attention to the monitoring of key performances such as tensile and elongation and elastic modulus of packaging, anti-pendulum impact energy, sealing performance (negative pressure method), especially the sealing performance monitoring of finished packaging in the production line.
——Choose a packaging material with good flexibility, and the kink force of the aluminum buckle should be appropriate.
Why does the heat-sealing part of the meat product package leak liquid?
Quality issues:
Liquid leakage often occurs in the heat-sealed part of the meat product packaging bag with a high content of liquid components.
Cause Analysis:
(1) Packaging materials
• Poor heat-sealing performance—During the packaging process of meat products, small particles such as droplets or meat product ingredients scraps often stick to the heat seal. The heat sealing strength at the part where the fine particles are mixed is easy to decrease, the sealing performance becomes poor, and it is squeezed by external force or stored for a long time, which is prone to leakage. It can be verified by testing the heat seal strength of finished packaging bags and empty packaging bags without content.
(2) Finished product packaging production process
• Poor sealing performance of the heat seal - if the parameters of the heat seal equipment are not set properly, the sealing quality of the heat seal part will be poor, and the phenomenon of poor heat seal or excessive heat seal will easily lead to liquid leakage at the heat seal.
Expert advice:
- Pay attention to the daily monitoring of the main performance of the packaging, such as heat sealing strength (empty packaging bags), heat sealing strength (finished packaging bags), sealing performance (negative pressure method).
——Choose packaging materials with good heat-sealing resistance to inclusions (that is, when the heat-sealing mouth is stained with debris, droplets, powders and other particles, it still has good heat-sealing properties), or appropriately increase the thickness of the heat-sealing layer material.
——Adjust the heat-sealing process parameters to avoid fine particles sticking to the heat-sealing part and ensure that the heat-sealing part has good heat-sealing quality.
Typical quality cases:
——Test sample: chicken feet packaging bag (customers reported that during the transportation or sales of the finished product packaging, there was liquid leakage at the heat sealing of the packaging bag).
- Targeted testing items: sealing performance (negative pressure method), heat sealing strength (finished product packaging).
——Test results: In the sealing performance (negative pressure method) test, when the finished chicken feet are packaged at -80KPa (because the product is in the form of vacuum packaging, the pressure at the time of leakage is higher than that of ordinary packaging), it appears in the heat seal. Air leakage; the uniformity of the heat sealing strength of the finished package is poor, the heat sealing strength of the well-sealed part can reach 55N/15mm, and the heat-sealing strength of the poorly sealed part is only 13N/15mm. Therefore, the poor sealing uniformity at the heat seal of the package is an important reason for the leakage of the heat seal.
For more details please visit www.linktesting.org
