Podcast
Episode 15: AQUALAB Product Overview
In this episode, John Russell, an application specialist, returns to Water in Food to provide an in-depth look at AQUALAB water activity devices. As businesses across the food industry rely on precise water activity measurements to ensure product quality and safety, John breaks down the key features and applications of these devices. Tune in to explore how the right hardware can optimize food production and support success in the industry.
About the guest
John Russell is an application specialist with expertise in food science and water activity measurement. With a deep understanding of AQUALAB water activity devices, John helps food industry professionals select the right tools to maintain product stability, safety, and quality. His work focuses on bridging the gap between scientific principles and practical applications, ensuring businesses maximize efficiency and precision in food production.
Transcript
0:00
I'm Zachary Cartwright this is water in food welcome back to another episode of
0:05
water in food throughout most of our previous episodes I've had the opportunity to speak with a range of
0:10
food producers and food scientists and discuss how their success is connected to controlling the water in their
0:16
products so far we've learned about fruit snacks and chocolates mushroom jerky nutraceuticals Pharmaceuticals
0:23
even hemp and cannabis and throughout these episodes we've briefly touched on
0:28
some of the technology that is used to measure the water in these items now after each episode I've been receiving a
0:36
lot of questions about the available Technologies to measure water activity and moisture content and to help answer
0:43
some of these questions and to learn more about a some of meter groups products we decided to bring back our
0:49
friend John Russell John is a field sales specialist at meter group and he was featured back on episode 4 of the
0:56
podcast so definitely go back and listen to that episode to learn about balancing stability and
1:03
continuous Improvement John has been selling water activity meters at meter group for quite some time we'll have to
1:09
ask him the number of years and there's no one else with his level of expertise when it comes to knowing the equipment
1:16
and what is available to measure the water in food so with that said welcome
1:21
back to the podcast John thanks Zachary glad to be back yeah
1:26
we're glad to have you well what's new with you what's changed since uh the last time we spoke with you
1:32
well I've had my covid shot so I can actually get out in the community and
1:37
and do what I want to do again so that's been nice and where are you located John where are you based I'm in New Jersey
1:44
Somerville New Jersey and overall how were things there
1:49
um where you live um well things are fine now it's a nice
1:55
summer's coming back we're fully open so we can go into stores and restaurants
2:01
and you know employees still wear masks but the rest of us are free to to roam
2:07
mask list now well good to hear I'm glad things are slowly returning to normal I
2:12
thought it would be really helpful for our listeners to have you back on and just to to hear about our instruments
2:18
you know you can go online and you can look or you can set up a meeting with me and get really technical but sometimes I
2:24
think the best way to learn about these instruments is just to listen to a conversation and just like the previous
2:30
podcasts we interview people and really try to focus on the story and I'm hoping
2:36
that you have some stories associated with each of the pieces of equipment that we'll go over today
2:42
um so let's just start with um some background information and maybe you can just provide your definition of water
2:48
activity and how it compares to moisture content sure water activity is the measure of
2:56
the energy status of water in a system so unlike moisture content moisture
3:01
content is the amount of water but some of that water gets Bound in chemical
3:07
bonds capillary bonds or there's solution effects and and that water the
3:15
water molecules are all like buzzing around with a certain amount of energy and that energy goes down it slows down
3:21
the water molecules with that bonding and so so the overall energy is lower now when
3:30
it comes to moisture content it's a measure of how much by percent weight and so it's just a measure of of how
3:37
much water it's actually very surprisingly difficult to measure but water activity is not difficult to
3:43
measure and and you get so much more information because it's that energy of
3:49
water that affects chemical physical and biochemical reaction rates over time so
3:56
things like whether or not you're going to have microbial growth how water moves
4:01
from one component to another if you might see lipid oxidation or
4:07
Browning reactions enzyme activity all of these things have to do with the um
4:14
with the energy of the water and not with how much water there is
4:20
and what would you say are kind of your top three reasons for using water activity it sounds like maybe the the
4:27
ease of use the accuracy but but what would you say are kind of your top three reasons to use water activity instead of
4:33
just moisture content oh gosh one of the top ones is process control
4:39
um you know water activity because it is so much easier to measure you get much more consistency in the results that you
4:45
take but it's also a much smaller measurement so I liken it to measuring to the nearest millimeter rather than
4:51
measuring to the nearest inch so if you can do a quick test as you're processing
4:57
whatever the product is that you're working with especially if there's a dry down process involved or a change in
5:04
moisture in that process happening water activity is just going to be a much easier way for you to ensure that you're
5:12
maintaining following the same process every time bringing that product to the same moisture level every time
5:20
and has the use of water activity is is this something that's been around for decades is this something relatively new
5:25
I know you've been in the field for quite some time and I'm just wondering what you've seen in in the food industry
5:31
or Pharma industry who uses water activity gosh um it's used in many many different
5:41
um uh applications and and different market
5:46
segments um so of course for pharmaceutical stability of pharmaceutical products is
5:52
very important um same with food anything with a product that needs to be stable water
5:59
activity becomes relevant and so we've actually the most of the
6:05
research of about water activity came about in the 50s our company has been
6:12
making water activity meters since the mid to late 1980s I think 1987 our first
6:20
water activity meter was released and sold to the food industry so the food industry is where it was most important
6:28
at the time to make sure that there weren't chances for microbial growth and it's a
6:33
great way to mitigate microbial growth and so to keep your food safe
6:39
and so that's what really built the knowledge around water activity in Foods
6:45
was that interest but as people learn more and more about water activity it becomes more and more known that it
6:52
really affects the overall stability whether that be chemical or
6:58
physical degradation whether it be how much moisture is absorbed through packaging based on the vapor
7:05
transmission rate in the packaging all of these things have to do with water activity so we've got building materials
7:11
we've got adhesives you know a cannabis like you had mentioned earlier
7:18
and cosmetics these are all industries that are using water activity and
7:24
they're at different levels of understanding about the the water activity and so traditionally many of
7:30
these industries have used moisture content and found that it really doesn't give them the information they need and
7:37
with water activity you get a much better idea of what's going on in your products so it sounds like people who are
7:44
concerned about water activity include food scientists or r d teams and and quality control teams definitely the
7:51
consumers you know they want a safe product um who else uh cares about water activity what about people like
7:57
shareholders or people interested in business value associated with this
8:03
measurement oh great question like I was mentioning earlier for process control
8:08
if you have a better way to get precise accurate results in your moisture levels
8:15
while knowing that it's going to maintain the quality and safety that your customers need and want you can
8:22
actually increase the yield the way you increase yields and the profitability is by adding more moisture but knowing that
8:30
it's safe the challenge with moisture content measurements is that the moisture content measurements just
8:36
aren't precise enough and so you attend or what companies tend to do is drive
8:42
more than is necessary lowering their yield often lowering the quality of the
8:48
product because it changes the texture and the mouth feel and a variety of other things and so if you can increase
8:55
the moisture to have the most optimal amount of moisture for profitability
9:01
while also being safe and high quality product then
9:06
um then of course shareholders care about that I mean we have some you mentioned cannabis easily we are
9:13
increasing revenues by over a million dollars for the Cannabis industry for companies there are other industries
9:19
that look at jerky jerky is a really good one we all have gone uh um opened up a package of jerky and sometimes it's
9:25
way too tough and and sometimes you get that really nice moist jerky now if we
9:31
can do that keep that really nice moist jerky but keep it safe your customer is
9:37
much happier and the shareholders are much happier because it's so much more valuable
9:43
we actually did have we did have a jerky company that we worked with and we implemented some of our systems for the
9:50
rapid measurements of water activity with automated electronic data capturing they raised their um their revenue by
9:57
546 thousand dollars in just six months so I mean it makes a huge difference
10:04
and you touched on a little about how you're measuring water activity but what are the the different sensors that are
10:10
used in um are some sensors better than than other methods oh well there are definitely different
10:18
types of sensors and it depends on your application so when you're measuring
10:23
water activity what you're really doing is you're taking a sample and you're putting in a small closed system and
10:29
it's a natural phenomenon of thermodynamics that water will move from high pressure to low pressure till it comes to equilibrium
10:36
if you can imagine all those water molecules buzzing around they all want to feel the same amount of pressure until they spread out until that
10:42
pressure is equal but that means in a small closed chamber where you put your sample the water molecules will move
10:49
from the sample material to the air and from the air to the sample until there's equilibrium and then we're testing vapor
10:55
pressure over top of the sample so um the question is how do you test vapor
11:01
pressure and there are a variety of different ways there are you know humidity sensors
11:07
like capacitance sensors other electrical sensors can be used for your
11:13
testing electrical properties which aren't really a measure of vapor pressure or of humidity but they can be
11:21
calibrated to mean something in terms of humidity um and and so or uh to water activity so
11:29
you tend to see less accuracy you tend to see a greater chance of Shifting
11:34
calibrations and so forth if you use an electrical property sensor
11:39
um now if you have a chilled mirror dew point sensor we find it's really really stable so the way a chilled mirror dew
11:46
point sensor is you're chilling a mirror till it do forms on the mirror testing at the temperature of the mirror and of
11:52
the sample at the time that uh that the Dew forms on the mirror and it's very
11:58
highly uh effective it's the most accurate way to test water activity and you get very con very good consistency
12:05
but there are times when when that is not the best method and those times
12:11
would have have to do with those uh um volatile ingredients that might be in
12:17
your products things like ethanol propylene glycol
12:23
essential oils these are things that are that are highly volatile and those volatile Vapors can settle on the mirror
12:30
so we actually have a device called the aqualab TDL it stands for tunable diode
12:36
laser with the tunable diode laser the laser shines across the headspace and
12:41
it's been fine-tuned so that it only uh um is interfered
12:46
without laser only notices the water molecules in the air and is not affected
12:53
by any volatile Vapors at all so really if you have volatiles that's the best
12:58
way using the tunable diode laser is going to give you consistent accurate results it's also nearly as accurate and
13:05
consistent as the dew point sensor but you can test all products regardless of
13:10
the ingredients and that's a perfect pivot because I want to touch on each of the pieces of
13:17
equipment that we offer and let's just start right there with the aqualab tdl2 so I'll ask you the the same three
13:23
questions to start about each instrument and that's the type of sensor the accuracy of that instrument and how long
13:30
it takes to get a reading so tunable dialed lasers using a laser but what is
13:36
the accuracy of the tdl2 and how long is it taking to get that reading
13:41
great question so tdl2 like I mentioned you can test all of your products regardless of contents
13:48
and the accuracy is plus or minus .005 water activity and most of your products
13:55
will take about somewhere between three to five minutes some can take a little
14:00
bit longer for that equilibration process to happen like I was describing earlier you do
14:06
have to wait for full equilibrium to get that accuracy of 0.005 however the tdl2
14:12
can connect to our Scala software and we've actually been able to develop this
14:18
just in the last year and a half where we can use
14:23
machine learning to learn that equilibration process for a given product so for any given product that
14:32
equilibration process that happens in the aqua lab sample chamber that small cloud system where you're putting a
14:37
sample that's consistent and the Scala software can learn that and then can calculate in
14:45
the algorithm after just three full-length reads it can calculate an algorithm and give you a reading in just
14:51
60 seconds and highly accurate not as accurate as .005 like the full length
14:58
read but always better than .02 water activity and often better than point
15:04
zero one one or activity still get really good consistency and accuracy even with a one minute reading using
15:11
that artificial intelligence piece in the scholar software so some of the pros for this instrument
15:18
sounds like the ability to essentially run any type of sample even if volatile components are there the speed are there
15:25
any other Pros that you would put with this instrument maybe compared to our other instruments at meter or
15:32
instruments by made by other companies yeah so
15:37
um the real one of the real pros I mean this is what designates it against all
15:43
other equipment on the market is that you don't have to worry about what volatiles I mean we already brought this
15:49
up but there's no other water activity meter that can test any product
15:54
regardless of volatile content without the use of some filters you have to get the right filters
16:01
or without the concern of say a polymer in the sensor absorbing volatile Vapors
16:08
or like I mentioned with the mirror so that's the number one designating Factor
16:14
you get high accuracy and it doesn't matter what the ingredients are you can connect it to the Scala software and
16:21
have automated data collection assigned to product the batch the technician
16:28
taking the test you know date and time all of that data can easily be collected
16:35
you can do that with our other equipment as well um and uh um but with aqualab TDL it's a
16:42
very smooth transition connecting it and getting all of that data very easy to do and a user-friendly software
16:50
so lots of Pros um but there are also any cons are there any drawbacks that you see about uh this instrument
16:58
I wouldn't say that there is a drawback um the price is higher the technology is
17:03
more expensive and so we're not able to build the equipment for the same price that we can
17:10
build the others so it is a higher price tag but the added value is there as well
17:16
I mean especially if you can use it to increase your yields and you know that
17:21
you've got correct data so you know you're getting Pro having products that are safe and not worrying about whether
17:28
or not you're getting incorrect data and what types of customers are using
17:33
the tdl2 who who do you sell this to uh flavor companies fragrance companies
17:39
very very popular in those Industries Pharmaceuticals especially when working with Organic
17:47
solvents or topical Pharmaceuticals Cosmetics industry
17:54
um the uh toothpaste and oral hygiene products
18:01
these are all Industries and and also cannabis cannabis is highly volatile and
18:08
a lot of the products cannabis itself doesn't necessarily need a tunable dialed laser but a lot of the products
18:14
essential oils um and products where terpenes are added
18:19
like with gummies and so forth these are things that you really need the TDL and there's no other meter on the market
18:26
that can give you the accuracy that you can get with the TDL
18:31
and is there a customer story that stands out either about the TDL the old
18:36
version or the new version the tdl2 anything that that comes to mind about this instrument and a client that you've
18:43
worked with um yeah there's so here's uh here's an
18:49
example essential oils is a good example so I was working with um a client who needed to test the water
18:55
activity in essential oils and they're that's their specialty um and the question was can we use a
19:02
capacitance sensor the capacitance sensors are much less expensive and so you know that's a little bit desirable
19:09
but not if you're getting faulty readings and so I actually did some
19:14
testing I I had some tea tree oil in my medicine cabinet and I pulled it out and
19:20
that's why I did this testing myself in my home office here comparing the
19:26
different kinds of sensors a dew point sensor a capacitance sensor and a tunable diode laser the
19:34
dew point and capacitance sensors both gave irregular
19:40
readings that were elevated the capacitance sensor was was too high not
19:45
as high as the the tunable as the chilled mirror dew point sensor but
19:51
those electrical property sensors the volatile Vapors get into the polymer and
19:57
uh um and it really throws off those readings sometimes and I was seeing that effect with the capacitance sensor so
20:03
the only way to get accurate readings was the tunable diode lasers so it was
20:08
that was fun because I was involved and and uh you know doing doing a bit of the
20:14
testing and experimenting myself to make sure we were able to provide the best equipment for the
20:21
um for the art our client the client we're partnering with in making sure that they have the equipment they need
20:28
and I know our listeners can't see it but there's a TDL too right uh over your your left hand corner is that right
20:35
that's actually the TDL one but TDL too right here oh there it is yeah
20:43
but I think the video is not right well let's move on to the next device
20:49
um let's just move on to the aqua lab for Te so same three starting questions what type of sensor is in this
20:56
instrument what is the accuracy and how long does it take to get a reading on on the 4te
21:03
yeah the aqualab 4te uses the chilled mirror dew point sensor it's accurate to
21:08
plus or minus .003 has a very consistent calibration readings are usually between three and
21:17
five minutes there are some products that will take longer and it has to do with adsorption desorption rate of a
21:24
given product so products that are very high in in oils or fats might take
21:29
longer products that are very very dry say down in the 0.1 water activity range
21:35
will take a little longer as well so but for most products by and large it's
21:41
between three and five minutes the aqualab 4te is our tried and true
21:48
um it first was released in 2009 it's still being sold today
21:54
and it's got the temperature control needed to do temperature abuse studies
21:59
you've got the accuracy that your R D team needs you've got really good
22:05
consistency so it's a great instrument to have and what does the te stand for John the
22:13
te stands for temperature so um there was a day when we were making
22:18
equipment that didn't have temperature control which means that if you're using
22:24
any equipment and this is true if you were to buy a portable meter a meter from another brand there likely will be
22:30
no temperature control and water activity is actually temperature dependent so at different
22:37
temperatures you will have different results for your water activity tests so
22:44
it's really important that not only you have good good temperature control so your sample is close in temperature to
22:50
the sensors when you start taking the reading and but also because you want to
22:56
know that you're getting consistency in your results and you're not seeing variation just based on changes in
23:02
temperature ambient humidity ambient temperature changes that that will
23:07
affect the results that you're getting as far as pros and cons go for this
23:12
instrument what what would you say um Pros gosh the accuracy is phenomenal
23:21
um ease of use is is phenomenal um that one downside is that uh um that
23:30
uh it doesn't it's not as effective if you have certain volatiles like
23:36
propylene glycol ethanol other organic solvents essential oils these are things
23:43
that acetic acid those are the kinds of volatiles that you might see
23:49
less accurate results with when testing with the dew point sensor so it really is important that you are aware of what
23:57
sensor is going to work best with your for your applications
24:03
and so that's that's really the only downside the other downside is that the
24:08
hardware isn't equipped even though it can connect to our Scala software the hardware isn't equipped so it's not able
24:14
to do the one minute readings um using that machine learning piece
24:20
with the scholar software we can do that with the aqualab TDL we have another device the aqualab 3
24:26
that are able to give those one minute readings and the 4te is not designed to
24:32
do that and we'll touch on the aqua Lab 3 here in a second um just to finish off the 4te who uses
24:40
this instrument um maybe the types of clients but also within that company whereas this
24:46
instrument is it on the production floor is it in a quality lab where would we find it
24:52
definitely in your r d lab commonly used in quality Labs frequently used on a
24:59
production floor um it uh um it is more of a lab instrument
25:05
where it it has a clamshell lid that could let if you're in a Dusty
25:11
environment on the production floor then I would recommend a different meter but
25:16
it is I have seen many on a production floor as well so it really is a very Universal meter
25:24
um and can be used most anywhere it's just a question of are you looking for
25:29
those fast readings with automated electronic data so you can really increase your yield while also being
25:36
safe and for that it's not the best fit um so aqualab three uh this is our last
25:42
uh piece of equipment that we'll go over today so same three starting questions what are the the sensor or the sensors
25:49
in this instrument what's the accuracy and how long does it take to get a reading
25:55
yeah aqualab 3 actually has a dual sensor it uses both the chilled mirror
26:01
dew point sensor and a capacitance sensor the chilled mirror dew point sensor is
26:07
accurate to .005 in the aqualab 3 and the capacitance sensor is accurate
26:15
to .02 so the capacitance sensor can
26:20
work with some volatiles like if you're less than three percent ethanol works well with propylene glycol there are
26:27
other volatiles that it might struggle with like the the essential oils if you have organic solvents or or alcohol
26:35
above you know about three percent it varies depending on on how the volatile is
26:42
bonding with the rest of the system it's not an exact percentage but it's able to handle both of those
26:49
and so and actually using the two in combination
26:54
that enables us to get one minute readings with the aqualab 3.
27:01
so Pros here um the the reading time and being able to connect to Scala well any cons here
27:09
associated with the aqualab 3. um so the only the only con would be if
27:16
you have a higher volatile content than what would be good for the
27:22
capacitance sensor it doesn't have the temperature control between 15 and 50 degrees Celsius the way the TDL and the
27:30
aqualab 4te do so you wouldn't be able to say do temperature abuse studies for
27:36
example um so it it does have those limitations it does require that you're connected to
27:43
the Scala software which is the cloud-based software and it's remarkable and that's what gives the most value
27:51
one of the things that I am able to see giving really high value with the one
27:57
minute readings for products that would take 10 20 minutes in a 4te like ghee
28:06
for example or lard sunflower seed butter
28:12
these things would take a long time to get a reading even with a dew point
28:17
sensor or a tunable diode laser until you connect it to the Scala software and then we can still get that accuracy of
28:23
better than plus minus 0.02 in just one minute and something that we haven't touched on
28:29
too much yet but can you also get a moisture content reading from the aqualab 3 or any of the instruments that
28:36
we've talked about we absolutely can so and this is
28:41
actually your expertise as Zachary but what we do is we make a moisture
28:46
absorption isotherm for a given product and it's amazing how consistent many of
28:52
these moisture absorption isotherms are for example kibble we see even from many
28:57
different brands a correlation with that moisture absorption isotherm curve very
29:02
being very similar um and so a moisture absorption isotherm
29:08
what is is it's it's a graph or a table that shows us the relationship between water activity and moisture content
29:16
um and different products will have different relationships and those relationships are not linear it's it
29:22
would be nice if they were make things much easier but uh um you know you're going to see a
29:28
difference in the shapes of those slopes um that if you're looking at a graph but
29:33
with the moisture absorption isotherm curve you can learn that relationship and then if if you have an easy water
29:42
activity reading minimal sample prep non-destructive you can also get the
29:47
corresponding moisture content what that means is you can know both your water activity and your moisture content and
29:55
when connected to Scala then you can get that moisture content but you can also get your one minute readings if you're
30:01
using the aqualab 3 or the TDL so we're works with all of our equipment as long as you're connected to the software
30:07
because for those isotherms to work you need you know the equipment needs to know what product is being tested so we
30:15
can we can create a moisture model a mathematical representation of that
30:20
isotherm curve load that into the um the product
30:25
where we designate the product in the Scala software
30:30
and so then every time you read that product you'll see both the water activity and the moisture content
30:36
and what type of customers are using the aqualab 3 and and where would this be found is this another r d tool quality
30:43
on the processing floor where does this instrument go sure it actually can be used for R D but
30:51
it's really designed for quality and production so um it's it's designed around and and you
30:58
have for aqua 3 you have to be connected to the Scala software and that's what makes it really so special and and so
31:05
unique because it's fully integrated into the Scala software um and so with that full integration
31:12
um uh people who are working in in Industries where having that process
31:17
like they're wanting to know that they're drying to the same dryness every time they need that fast electronic
31:24
feedback to do that so that's a really common one um when you have a lot of throughput
31:31
um and um like if you're in a lab that is just receiving tons of samples then um having
31:38
to wait even five minutes for each of those samples it really limits how much you can do in a day so being able to
31:44
have that fast throughput is really helpful for labs as well and to not have to write down the readings and later
31:52
transpose it into Excel if that's just part of taking a reading then it really speeds up all your
31:59
processes it removes so much human error now all of the the models and
32:05
instruments that we've discussed so far their their current Technologies and this has resulted from Decades of
32:12
research and development at meter and I'm curious to know in your opinion what
32:18
have been the biggest Innovations in water activity readings during your time at meter group
32:24
oh I'd say a year and a half ago when we came out with the one minute readings another the other one was the tunable
32:30
diode laser which was around 2014 2015 that we developed that
32:37
and I'm using the chernoable diode laser in the aqualab TDL enables us to test
32:44
products that we'd never had opportunities to test before um in in the uh like industrial
32:50
lubricants is one example that we had struggled and tried with
32:56
other sensors to make work and there was a real need but we didn't have uh um
33:02
there wasn't one on the market that could test this those products
33:07
accurately so the tunable diode laser has really opened up a lot of doors for a lot of Industries
33:14
um stable like uh pharmaceutical manufacturing sometimes use
33:20
organic solvents that have to be at a specific water activity level but they didn't have a way to test and verify the
33:27
water activity of those solvents and uh and that would would be very expensive if they got the wrong amount and they'd
33:34
try to make the Pharmaceuticals and it doesn't work out so being able to have
33:39
that was a huge Innovation for us um
33:44
now uh I started in 2006 so 15 years ago
33:50
and it was within the first couple years that we first created our isotherm
33:56
generator so our either isotherm generator was able to make uh
34:03
the the dynamic isotherms what we call DDI isotherms with a dynamic isotherms
34:11
you're not waiting for a product to come to equilibrium at a given humidity instead you're seeing what happens while
34:19
that product is changing in humidity so most of the times when we're working if we're making products then it's going
34:25
through a humidity change we want to be able to see what's happening during that change not just after it changed and
34:31
that DDI isotherm enables us to do that we were able to find glass transition points with uh with uh
34:40
powders for example where the powder might start caking and clumping we're able to see crystallation
34:47
crystallization now with the vapor absorption analyzer we have now it's our current isotherm
34:52
generator you can do both the dynamic isotherms and the static isotherms the
34:58
DVS and so there's a lot you can do and like I mentioned before Zachary you're
35:04
the expert on this so I I like listening to you you tell it though John okay
35:09
so anybody out there listening if you want to learn more Zachary's the expert talk to him he will set you up but
35:17
absolutely there's there's things that you can learn uh um for example formulations how if you're it's really
35:25
great for uh for the r d teams um if you're lurking to shorten your time and
35:30
stop guessing and checking while you're mixing ingredients like how much humectant do I need to add in order to get the results I'm looking for
35:38
um then you can you can predict all of that with uh um and it's not just two
35:43
mections but putting multiple uh ingredients together and predicting final water activity for example or
35:50
predicting shelf life based on packaging and the vapor transmission rate of the packaging easy calculations with an
35:57
isotherm give you a a good shelf life that's reliable so rather than waiting
36:04
months and months and months and doing tests over all of those months or or trying to do increased temperature to do
36:12
accelerated tests that isn't as reliable you can do it much faster and and with
36:19
with much better results better predictions using the Vape prescription analyzer
36:26
so there's been so many Innovations how do I pinpoint the ones that are most
36:31
important so it sounds like just to summarize maybe some of the big ones are the dew
36:37
point sensor itself uh the dynamic dew point isotherm method we have the the
36:42
aqualab 3 and the ability to take that one minute reading and then also the the
36:47
TDL technology but what's the next big innovation is there anything that
36:53
listeners should be excited about or something that you know that's in the works that's going to come out
36:59
absolutely if you want to be able to learn how to harness technology
37:04
in order not only to predict but in order to maintain uh
37:10
consistency in your processes regardless of changes in incoming
37:18
ingredients there's always less very I mean there's always variability in incoming ingredients there's always
37:23
variability in ambient humidity and temperature so there's there's a lot of
37:28
things that influence your processes as you're doing a cooking
37:35
step or a drying step or sometimes even a moistening step a sprayed eye step we
37:41
have Innovation now that is able to use sensor technology looking at the
37:47
temperature we have the ability sometimes to use the the vapor pressure
37:52
at different steps in the process and using a machine learning to actually
37:58
learn your specific products and be able to maintain that consistency each time
38:03
you make a batch and have always coming to the right moisture levels after the process so that's that's huge I mean
38:10
that's going to save our clients so much money in Lost batches in low yields is
38:18
just huge and if there's anyone listening to this episode who would like to learn more
38:24
about meter groups instruments or even talk to you directly what's the best way for them to to get a hold of you and
38:30
learn more well you can always call me uh
38:36
509-332-5521 send me an email John metergroup.com that's j o h n at
38:45
m-e-t-e-r-g-r-o-u-p.com and you can also reach out to our our sales team
38:52
sales.food metergroup.com you can reach out to our Scala team uh
39:00
Scala I'm sorry support.scala metergroup.com if you want to learn more
39:05
about that software there's there's so many many ways but go to our website um metergroup.com and you'll be able to
39:13
uh you know press a button on whatever page you're on and request information chat with a support person
39:21
um you know get connected with a salesperson so talk with your application specialist
39:27
if you have and and scientists like you Zachary and uh so we have we have many resources
39:34
where you can get information great well I just want to thank you again John for coming back for another
39:40
episode it's probably been 10 or 12 since we had you on last I can't believe so many have gone by but we definitely
39:47
want to have you back again so I I will have to twist your arm another time and see if you'll come back and talk about a
39:53
new topic absolutely anytime I'm Zachary Cartwright this is water in
39:58
food find this podcast on Apple iTunes Spotify or wherever you listen to
40:05
podcasts
