03/12/14

During my time at my internship, I was informed of the results that were collected from the ongoing project with the floral foams. Of the myriad of different experiments that we performed with these very foams, the one I wrote in particular about was the addition of clear flour. There were 3 floral foams involved: #1 was our control, #2 was the one to which we added 32grams of clear flour, and #3 was the one in which we added (approximately) 94 grams of clear flour. When I state that a number of clear flour was added, I mean, more specifically, to say that clear flour was added in the regrind (the material that makes up the floral foams).

In addition, for those who do not know or are mistaking clear flour with the everyday flour used in baking: "Clear flour is the portion of the flour remaining after the patent flour streams have been separated. Clear flour generally contain a higher percentage of protein than the other grades, but the quality of the protein is lower." Or in other words, clear flour is cheaper than the typical flour found in markets and it contains a higher percentage/about the same (or maybe just a little lower but the difference is negligible). Thus, Ecovative is killing two birds with one stone by applying clear flour over regular flour.

My mentor alerted me that for #1, mold appeared on day 5; for #2, mold appeared on day 5 and had better feature resolution; for #3, mold appeared on day 4. Thus, it was concluded that about 32grams was the amount of clear flour that would give Ecovative the best results as compared to no clear flour (#1) and too much clear flour (#3).

This stated, my mentor could have performed more tests to further figure out a more precise amount of clear flour that would produce the ideal floral foam. However, the company that this very product is for was content with the number of days as with 32grams of clear flour, the floral foams, as stated prior, can last for a minimum of 5 days without any mold, and on top of this, because it has good feature resolution, we have found that the mold typically begins underneath--a place where customers will not on their everyday-basis look at. In addition, most flowers do not have that long of a life-span and so it is most probable to state that the a majority of consumers will throw away the product before mold is actually seen.

http://www.thebakerynetwork.com/baking-science