"The purpose of a heat penetration study is to determine the heating and cooling behavior of a product/package combination in a specific retort system for the establishment of safe thermal processes and evaluating process deviations. The study must be designed to adequately and accurately examine all critical factors associated with the product, package and process which affect heating rates. Numbers of containers per test run, and number of test runs to account for statistical variability are important considerations. Before commencing a heat penetration study, an evaluation of retort temperature and heat transfer uniformity, at times referred to as a heat or temperature distribution study, should have been completed. A goal in conducting these studies is to identify the worst case temperature response expected to occur in commercial production as influenced by the product, package and process."
Institute for Thermal Processing Specialists
Protocol For Carrying Out Heat Penetration Studies (November 10, 1995)
CALSoft is a tool used to conduct these heat penetration tests. The resulting CALSoft "Heat Penetration Data File" contains the recorded time/temperature data from the test, in addition to pertinent information such as product formulation, product data factor measurements, temperature and lethality setpoints, etc.