How Can You Make Food Homogenization Less of a Grind?

Sample preparation of a food matrix is only as good as the initial homogenization of your sample.  This determines how representative and effective your extraction will be.  There are multiple ways to homogenize, grind or comminute your sample.  Some involve a simple grind in a food processor.  Other methods require expensive instrumentation to cryogenically freeze your sample.

In the past, when I only used an industrial food processor, samples were often messy to handle, and after freezing, they required thawing before they could be used.  This resulted in needless down time.  After the blog post, A Hoppy Little Story, where I introduced Colton to a new way of homogenizing food samples, I wondered what other foods could be processed this way.  As it turns out, adding dry ice to your sample while grinding, makes every food matrix I tried not only easier to handle initially, but also easier to handle after freezing.

To share this tip with our blog readers, I decided to make a video that brings you into our innovations lab, and shows how we use the dry ice to assist in grinding and what results you get before and after freezing.  With just the addition of dry ice, homogenization, handling and storage becomes so much easier.  I hope the tips in this video are helpful to you too!