Fine Tune Your Kill Step

The kill step. Sounds pretty intense…and it is. It’s the absolutely necessary point when harmful pathogens, like Salmonella spp., are eliminated. And it has to be absolutely effective to ensure baked goods are safe to eat, plus have a proper shelf life.

And now you need to document it.

The first deadline has passed for larger bakeries to be compliant with FSMA, and smaller bakeries have under a year to show documentation of their kill step. A thermal kill step above 165°F should be held for at least 15 seconds to make sure the product is safe from foodborne illness.

As a baker, you need to document the correct temperature for each product you bake. And yes, it’s different for each product. 

This is where the kill step calculator comes in.

It allows you to calculate the lethality of the kill step for your different products and print a report for your records—pretty slick, huh?

With the tools on the market, you can collect data on the core temperature during baking and the kill step.

How do the recording instruments and kill step calculator work together? Check it out!

Science. It keeps us safe.