gourmet dog treats and mold - commercial dehydrator

If you are baking your own dog food, the mold will cause you a problem, and the following information is expected to help you solve the problem.
As a food scientist, understanding what makes mold grow and more importantly how to prevent mold growth is the main part of my work.
Needless to say, I was a little frustrated when I started baking my dog food.
When you start your own dog food business, you may find that your dog food has a low shelf life. Translation -
Dog food and mold
It is not uncommon to find this problem.
So don't feel bad if your dog treats mold.
There are some things you can do to solve this problem.
Let's start with the mold base.
Mold is a tiny fungus that lives and grows.
It needs some basic nutrients and elements, just like other creatures: 1. water2. food3.
It's right to simplify things, but in short, that's it.
So, if you control these things, you can control the mold.
Unfortunately, in Grilled dog food, almost every ingredient you use is a good food for mold --
Especially when it's mixed together.
So two things you can really control are the temperature of your food and the water or moisture in your food.
Let's start with the temperature.
Mold spores can usually withstand very high temperatures, so the cooking process may not kill mold spores.
Alternatively, mold spores can land on your food after cooking (
They float almost everywhere).
Once your food is baked, the temperature you keep it will greatly slow down the growth of mold.
Usually, the lower the storage temperature, the less mold growth.
So, if you eat one meal at room temperature, another meal in the same batch in the refrigerator, and a third meal in the refrigerator, the food you put in the refrigerator is likely to be moldFree for a few months
The food in the fridge will last for several weeks (up to 4 -6 weeks)
, The treatment you keep at room temperature can get moldy in 1 to 2 weeks.
Commercial processors have components that inhibit mold (
Body calcium, etc. . ).
But as a gourmet or pure natural roaster, you may want to avoid these things appearing on your ingredient report.
One of your options is to cook and cool your food as usual and then freeze them until you need to ship them to your customers.
You can also place a "sell or freeze by date" date on your package as follows: "use or freeze by 7/4/2016 "-
Freshly baked, no preservatives.
Let your customers know that your product is fresh and will deteriorate if not handled properly.
This is more critical for softer foods, cakes, and muffins, as they are much more hydrated than crispy foods.
Another thing you can control with dog snacks and mold is the amount of moisture in your snacks.
If you are baking "crunchy" food and still get moldy after 1 to 2 weeks, there is still too much moisture in your food.
The mold must have moisture to grow.
Very crispy food usually cooks most of the water in the oven.
This does require some skill in treating dogs.
Not like baked cookies.
You need to cook food at a lower temperature for a longer period of time to make sure the moisture is drained from the food before it is too Brown or burned.
Depending on the shape you use and the weight of your snack (thickness)
, It is not uncommon for you to have to heat your food at 250F for 1 to 2 hours or even longer.
Try your treatment to determine your recipe, shape and thickness combination, what time and temperature give you the right color and hardness to get your dog treated.
Another trick to consider is to use a commercial dehydrator to help remove some extra moisture from dog food.
This allows you to cook your food faster, get the right color, and then transfer the food to the dehydrator 6-8 hours.
The dehydrator will remove moisture without adding heat or changing the color of the food.
Please note: before cooling and using the dehydrator, it is important to make sure you cook your food thoroughly to kill any bacteria in eggs or meat.