Fallacy of 82°C water for open plant cleaning/sanitising

The meat processing industry sometimes uses 82ºC water during the clean or more often as their final rinse step, however this old school thinking needs to be challenged. Using it as the final rinse was thought to serve two functions – to rinse off the sanitiser residue from surfaces and to provide an extra sanitising step for the cleaned equipment.

We believe doing an 82ºC water rinse not only achieves very little, if any, positive outcomes, but is often the cause of a number of negative ones.

It has been proven that a number of common micro-organisms are not de-activated until they have been immersed in water at a constant temperature of 82ºC for between 10 to 20 minutes, which means spraying a jet of water at this temperature onto a piece of equipment for 30 seconds or so, will achieve very little in the way of the desired sanitation.

On the other hand, besides the heating cost of creating the 82ºC water, the use of it can create:

• A very real health and safety risk to the operator applying it – many instances have been reported of burns from this process.
• A vapour in the room (especially in chilled Boning rooms), which makes visibility poor for the cleaners, also an H&S concern.
• Insoluble mineral deposits on equipment, especially in areas of hard water.
• Shortened life of equipment components such as rubber seals, bearings, electrics etc – just ask your maintenance engineer.
• A lot of condensation on ceilings etc. That then needs another step to remove it before production can start.
• Delays in the cooling down of processing rooms that is needed before production re-starts (downtime).

If the proper, systematic cleaning and sanitising steps are followed, then there should be no reason that the final rinse cannot be performed with cold potable water.

You may like to find out how your operation can benefit from our on-going investment in research and development.

When we discuss your cleaning regime, we look at a lot more than the chemicals you use – often systems within our equipment range offer the very benefits customers are searching for.

Our promise to you is to be always innovating in order to bring you: Smarter Systems for Cleaning.

If you would like advice on how you can practically remove this step from your cleaning process, then please contact us.