Dry Petfood Moisture Control

Comment

Comment by John W. Robinson on April 2, 2010 at 9:51am

Most petfood drying operations must dry conservatively due to the lack of timely and reliable MC data and also because of the existence of a dead time barrier at the dryer exit, The following simple calculation is useful for estimating the extent of losses caused by poor MC control. For example, a 30% reduction in product MC standard deviation (s.d.) will enable your mean MC to be increased by [0.9 x the old s.d.] without exceeding the established upper specification limit (USL). If your old s.d. was 0.75 and you decreased it 30% by moving the MC sensor inside the dryer to break the dead time barrier, this would allow you to shift the mean MC by [0.9 x 0.75] = 0.68%. Take a look at your s.d. and see how much you can increase your mean MC. Let me know what you get.