Dicromat II     –  RAPID SALT ANALYSER

Dynamic Monitoring by Quality Assurance technicians or production operatives.

Practical and easy-to-use for production monitoring without chemicals or glassware.

The Dicromat determines the salt content of all food products by simply measuring a salt solution. Dry or solids products are prepared as a solution with the recommended dilution of the sample.

Liquid products and brines are measured directly. The Dicromat is calibrated for sodium chloride using standard reference Mohr, or Volhard, chemical titration methods.

The calibration eliminates the effect of other conducting ions in the solution and the NaCl value is retained in memory as a set point.

Aqueous-phase salt can be monitored in combination with a specially adapted microwave oven.

The CAL Guard feature provides calibration security. The product set-points are easily recalled with a few keystrokes by the operator.

The Dip-in probe is placed in the sample solution. The SALT % result is displayed in less than 15 seconds and display result held until the next sample.

 

TYPICAL FISH PRODUCTS APPLICATIONS:

Smoked Salmon  -finished  |  Smoked salmon – aqueous

Gravad lax salmon |  Smoked Mackerel  |Smoked trout

Shell fish – mussels, prawns  | Brines  | Fish pates

Caviar | Canned sardines, herring  | Anchovies

 

Advantages of Dicromat Salt Monitoring

Many food processors are using PCL’s Dicromat II Salt Analyser, as a rapid and practical instrument for monitoring salt levels in Quality Assurance laboratories, or in production monitoring.

This Salt Analyser is often cost-justified by improved consistency of quality and the saving of chemical, or analytical, costs with increased production efficiency.
It provides the following advantages:

• Shelf life – enables the fine balance between ensuring a product’s shelf life and meeting the health concerns of customers and consumers for lower salt content food products to be achieved.
• Low salt products – requires precision and frequent monitoring to keep level within tolerance.
• Production – monitoring salt content “beside-the-line” during processing enables optimum control.
• Finished product – salt content in natural or processed products as final Q.A. check.
•  Higher frequency testing – to ensure a consistent product quality.
• Non-technical operatives – can test products near the production lines.
• No expensive chemicals, standard solutions or consumables, required – just water!
• Environmentally friendly – no health hazardous chemicals used. -elimination of chemical disposal costs.
•  Precision – the salt results are within 0.1% of laboratory titration methods.
• Measures – range of salt levels from 0.1% to over 26%, without dilution, 100% with dilution.
• Practicality – simple sample preparation with a more representative 20 gram sample.
• Speed – just 2 minutes – sample weighing, blending for salt extraction to displayed result.
• Customer and Consumer loyalty – enhanced by consistent product taste and flavour.

It overcomes the limitations of other methods by using a conductivity-based probe, which does not require chemicals, standard solutions, and is manufactured entirely in plastic, making it ideal for use in a food processing area. Either a Dip-in non-contact probe or the Flow-through probe is available.

A microprocessor enables 24 individual product calibrated set points to be maintained in memory. The operator, using the large tactile keys on the keypad, recalls individual product calibration set-points easily with just two key strokes. The result is displayed in 15 seconds, following a short sample preparation. Results are displayed as % Salt, and can be printed for quality records and due diligence purposes.

The DiCromat II Salt Analyser provides the most practical QA solution with its simplicity, reliability and accuracy.

 

DiCromat Salt Analyser  for rapid determination of Aqueous-salt using a Commercial microwave oven & Microwavable Plastic sample stand with our MicroFibre Sample Pads

MICROWAVABLE SAMPLE STAND

The need for the Microwave Sample Stand is several fold in that
1) the plastic construction uses a microwave translucent material, which does not absorb microwave energy or influence the drying performance and by becoming hot during drying.
2) its is designed to position the sample (spread between two MicroFibre sample pads) in the centre of the microwave oven cavity.
This ensures that the microwave activity is the sole activation of the water molecules in the sample to ensure that a true loss-on-drying moisture is
obtained without also losing other volatiles from the sample.
3) The chamfered profile rim of the two circular parts of sample stand ensures that no solid mass (i.e. oven floor or rotating plate) influences the moisture removed during the 2 minute drying cycle.

This proven application is being used effectively by a significant number of smoked salmon processors in meeting their BRC or other regulatory bodies requirements and replicates in a few minutes in the production environment the classical laboratory methods taking several hours, or even an external service, where the results are almost academic because no process control is possible on that basis.

Our method enables non-technical personnel to complete frequent tests to optimise the aqueous-salt level in meeting their products shelf-life standards.

The DiCromat Salt analyser is used for a wide range of food processing applications, because it measures the level of salt in products often with poor homogeneity.

In calibrating our instrument using Mohr or Vollhard chemical titration and storing the product data in up to 24 set-points it is possible for a non-technical operator to recall the appropriate set-point with a few key strokes and obtain a result in 15 seconds following a 2 minute sample preparation time.

Having an IP-54 waterproof rating it can be used adjacent to the production area in damp or even wet conditions.

 

MICROWAVE OVEN and Sample Pads

One word of caution is that low cost microwave ovens are designed to HEAT significant size samples e,g. recipe dishes, cup of coffee, etc. but when used for small samples may cause the deterioration of the magnetron thereby reducing its power output after a relatively short period of time.

The aqueous-salt monitoring application of drying a small pre-blended 3 – 5 gram fish sample for 2 minutes is achieved without over-heating it by using two microfibre sample pads and our Microwave Sample Stand the fish sample has the moisture content evaporated from the sample without the loss of volatiles – only moisture.

Therefore, we recommend a catering-quality microwave oven which is more versatile and where the magnetron is protected from reflected microwave energy and reduction of power performance for many years – but they do cost more.

 

DiCromat II-24 Salt Analyser –  TESTING SOLUTIONS

This unit can be supplied as two solutions:

Solution One:

Dicromat ll-24 with a Dip-in Probe for both Total Salt Monitoring and Aqueous-Salt Monitoring.       

This combination comprises the salt analyser and a Microwavable Sample Drying Stand for the fish sample to be dried within 2 minutes to a comparable accuracy of a 4-hour lab  oven @ 104°C result. The salt and moisture results are applied to a calculation equation to provide the Aqueous-Salt within minutes, which compares very favourable with laboratory analysis in producing results dynamically for production to optimise this essential component in meeting or improving their finished product’s shelf-life.

Solution Two:

Dicromat ll-24 with a Dip-in Probe for Total Salt Monitoring.

 

Please contact our team to discuss your requirements  [email protected]