Air: The overlooked food safety threat | 2019-07-01 - Baking Business
Air: The overlooked food safety threat | 2019-07-01 - Baking Business |
- Air: The overlooked food safety threat | 2019-07-01 - Baking Business
- Got Summer Allergies? This Winix Air Purifier Is $100 Off - PCMag.com
- LEVOIT LV-H134 Air Purifier review - The Gadgeteer
| Air: The overlooked food safety threat | 2019-07-01 - Baking Business Posted: 01 Jul 2019 11:02 AM PDT  Air filtration is an important but often overlooked or misunderstood part of food safety. It pays to hire an expert when designing or upgrading such a system, as it can get complicated and expensive. The most sensitive areas in a plant are between the oven and packaging where finished product is vulnerable. Baked products exiting the oven are sterile. Recontamination occurs when product is exposed to contaminated air or food contact surfaces. Dust in the air inevitably contains mold spores. If your products are molding too fast, consider air filtration as a solution. First, measure the amount of air being exhausted from the building. Regulations require that a certain amount of air be exhausted from gas-fired ovens to ensure that combustible gases do not accumulate. Also, during baking, all ovens generate significant amounts of moisture that can increase air humidity or cause condensation on cold surfaces like overheads and walls, resulting in dripping water or mold growth. Often new equipment is added to a facility without consideration of the additional air exhaust or moisture it will bring. Knowing how much air is leaving the building, you can design an air makeup system to replace what is being exhausted and control humidity as needed. Maintaining positive pressure inside the building prevents unfiltered air from entering. Outside air must be filtered to remove the burden of dust, pollen and mold spores, which varies depending on the weather, climate and neighborhood activity such as construction or street sweeping. Air handling units pass outside air through a series of filters: a coarse screen with a ¼-inch opening to exclude birds, leaves and large insects; a layer of non-woven fabric with a tackifying resin to capture and hold heavy dust; a low-grade paper filter to remove coarse dust; and finally, a fine, high-efficiency filter. The bird screen should be cleaned with a brush as needed. Visually inspect the low- and high-grade filters and replace when dirty. Don't try to wash or vacuum them. Even better, install a vacuum gauge to measure the pressure drop across the filter and replace when it doubles. The filtration system should be capable of removing at least 90% of particles larger than 5 microns and 99% of particles larger than 10 microns. Don't forget that compressors push air into the building as well and must also be filtered, both incoming and at the point of use, wherever compressed air directly contacts finished product. Use a filter capable of removing 98% of particles larger than 0.5 microns. As bakers address air filtration, there are several important factors to consider. Air exhaust rate, positive building pressure, outside air temperature and the desired temperature inside the facility, and the amount of moisture generated by the baking process will all impact the air filtration system. And when designing it, bakers cannot overlook filter replacement frequency and filtration of compressed air as that can also be a risk point for contamination. Len Heflich is a contributing editor for Baking & Snack and the president of Innovation for Success. Connect with Mr. Heflich at heflichfoodsafety@gmail.com.  |
| Got Summer Allergies? This Winix Air Purifier Is $100 Off - PCMag.com Posted: 27 Jun 2019 01:12 PM PDT  Suffer from summer allergies? An air purifier might help give you some relief.
Using smart sensors and PlasmaWave technology, the Winix Air Cleaner continually scans your air and captures dust, pollen, smoke, and mold spores. A special carbon filter also helps to rid your home of odors from things like cooking or litter boxes. Though animal shedding seasons typically fall in spring and autumn, having pets is a constant battle with fur. Many vacuums for pet hair already have HEPA filters in them, but if your zoo needs something more heavy duty, the Winix cleaner can cleanse 360 square feet of pet dander and allergens. It normally costs $249.99, but you can save $100 when you purchase it at Walmart right now. Grab the Winix 5500-2 Air Cleaner for just $149.99 with free delivery. Post by Leah Stodart of the Mashable Deals team; originally appeared on Mashable.com.  |
| LEVOIT LV-H134 Air Purifier review - The Gadgeteer Posted: 11 Jun 2019 12:00 AM PDT
REVIEW – When you combine a pet with a wife that has asthma, you'll find yourself in need of air purifiers. The chance to review the Levoit LV-H134 Air Purifier came along and I couldn't wait to give it a try. What is it?The Levoit LV-H134 Air Purifier is a large air purifier with a true HEPA filter that is capable of filtering a very large room. What's in the box?
Hardware specs
Design and featuresThe Levoit LV-H134 Air Purifier is certainly a large unit, and as such, it can filter a lot of air without making as much noise as smaller units. Unlike smaller units that I've had, this one moves so much air at the high fan setting that you can actually feel the airflow in the room, something my wife really likes. At 29.5″ tall, it will be primarily a floor based unit for most people, however, I found that putting it on my fireplace mantel was a nice location for it. The unit has wheels on the bottom to make moving it easier, although I didn't feel as though it was so heavy that it would require it.
The filter is 14″ (35.56 cm) tall and 10.5″ (26.67 cm) in diameter, its installation was as easy as pulling the door open, sliding in the filter, and popping the door back on. This is a large filter and the unit is designed to take in air 360°, fully utilizing the cylindrical filter design. The filter is rated to remove 99.97% of airborne particles as small as 0.3 microns including Allergies and pets, smokers, mold, pollen, odor, mold and dust. The filter construction has a fine screen on the outside to trap large particles such as hair, dander and dust. The main part of the filter has a true HEPA filter, and the inside has activated carbon to handle odors.   One of the neat features of this unit is that it has an indicator ring on the display that changes color based on the quality of the air. Red = Bad, orange = moderate, green = good, and blue = very good. During use, it has run at blue most of the time and only occasionally displaying green. The laser sensor for this feature seems to be located after the air has been filtered and detects the number of particles in µg within a cubic meter within 30 seconds for real-time air quality feedback.
The touch display makes operation easy, a light touch is all it takes to change settings. It has three fan speeds, an auto setting, a sleep setting, display brightness, filter replacement warning, and a timer function that will turn off the unit in 1 to 12 hours. The lowest fan speed only produces 25dB noise that you can hardly hear. The auto mode adjusts the fan speed settings automatically according to the real-time air quality while saving energy. The top of the unit features a fin design that optimizes airflow throughout the room. The unit draws in air at the bottom and expels filtered air out the top.
I've got several smaller air purifiers, but they don't move nearly as much air and are not as easy to operate as the Levoit LV-H134 air purifier. I'm so happy with it that I'll probably get one of their smaller units for our home offices. The filters are rated for about 6 months and currently cost $64.99. What I like
What needs to be improved
Final thoughtsI'm really pleased with the Levoit LV-H134 air purifier. It really helps clean the air as well as move air around the room to keep it from feeling stagnant. Price: $399.99 Support The Gadgeteer: The Gadgeteer's main sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links in articles like this one. Even though we may receive compensation, we always give our honest opinions about our experiences with each product.  |
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