Dairy Industry: Instrument Calibration Standards
By: Emily Kalinowski and Angela Zurek
Eurofins DQCI
Instrument calibration management is the key to mass balance optimization in dairy plants. Eurofins DQCI is the dairy industry’s leading analytical laboratory, adhering to the highest standards supporting infrared and near-infrared technology worldwide.
As a part of our services, we manufacture a wide variety of dairy standards used to calibrate the testing equipment routinely utilized by dairy laboratories. DQCI establishes analytical values using methods issued by the Association of Official Analytical Chemists International (AOAC) and/or Standard Methods for the Examination of Dairy Products. Standards are produced at regular intervals to meet the specific needs of the industry, and are offered as duplicate sets with varying fat levels in order to ensure that one set is to be used for calibration and the second set for validation. In addition to calibrating with complete sets of samples, pilot samples are also offered to be used as a single point of analysis, and can be run hourly or daily to indicate if the instrument has drifted. Noticeable improvement has been observed in the quality of IR results with a calibration plan in place. This can make a difference between good estimated results, and results that are confidently reliable.
It is no secret that maintaining accurate calibrations of in-house testing equipment is important to any plant’s operation. Calibration standards offer customers the opportunity to validate new or current processes. That’s why Eurofins DQCI in Mounds View, MN creates calibration standards on a routine basis for products such as:
- Half and Half, Light and Heavy cream
- Condensed skim, whole and buttermilk
- UF Skim
- Pasteurized milk
- Raw milk, raw low-fat and raw whey
- Click here for a full list
Custom Calibration Standards
For products that require more specificity to a plant, a custom calibration standard is key to providing instruments with the proper calibration. Client request custom calibration standards for products such as flavored milk (whole, 1%, fat free), Ice cream mixes, Eggnog (light, regular, premium), ultra-pasteurized products, WPI, WPC and more.
Clients submit their product to make the calibration set specific to their plant. A small sample goes to the lab to for prescreening to verify the fat, solids and/or protein values the day of the product receipt. The prescreen produces results the next day and used to prepare the custom standard calibration recipe. After finalization of the recipe, the calibration set is ready for manufacturing, shipped to the client and sent to our laboratory. The laboratory will receive the calibration sets for analysis the same day the client receives them. Therefore, results will follow a few days after receipt of the set.
Long-term stable Frozen Standards
NEW OFFERING: Currently, frozen milk standards are validated for specific sample types, with our goal to have these available for all types of samples in the future. These standards are very similar to the freshly made standards, except they can be used over an extended period of time and have a shelf life of up to an entire year. Reference values for these samples will be stronger and more consistent, making it easier to determine if an instrument is changing. With the availability of frozen standards, instrument calibration is performed more frequently, making the calibration even stronger.
Do’s and Don’ts of Calibration
Click here to see more information about how to perform IR Calibration.
