[crafty baker]

Hi there I am excited to find your site...I make small batches of organic dog treats for sale and I need help determining which natural food preservative I can use in order to preserve and extend shelf life without refrigeration. Can I use dry milk in place of liquid? Citric Acid powder? Don't worry, I also bake and cook for my family and am sure that I'll have tons of questions for "human Food" as I go along!! any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Suzanne]

Welcome, Crafty Baker! That's a really interesting question; I wish I could answer it. But my experience with making pet food is only frozen meals, not treats.

Since you're basically asking a baking question, I'm going to put a copy of this thread on the board the pastry pros frequent. Between there and here, you should get a response.

[crafty baker]

thanks for responding....I thought it might be seen as odd asking a question about dog treats but it never hurts and besides, all natural preservatives are good for both dogs and humans!

[kuan]

Decreased shelf life may be due to different things. Is it fungus, rancidity, or moisture loss, or bacterial growth? There's no one size fits all preservative. Most work in combination with processing and packaging techniques to enhance shelf life.

[kthull]

I have no idea what it does to shelf life, but I make the dog biscuit recipe from Friberg and it uses powdered dry milk mixed with water.

[crafty baker]

thank you for replying!....when I say organic, it is is reference to using organic wheat,rye or soy flour with natural peanut butter. I will try the dry milk in place of the organic milk and test shelf life. I use food grade coffee bean bags to store the bisquits I have added a teaspoon of citric acid powder to the recipe to act as a preservative......I will have to make a batch today and see how long it lasts!

[KeeperOfTheGood]

Hey oh

Bearing in mind that the same factory that makes such chemicals as sodium benzoate, also makes citric acid.

Here is a list of links that is very extencive and informative. Lots of reading to do, thats for sure.

http://science.uniserve.edu.au/schoo.../presadds.html


Also, I have to ask, how do you plane on testing the shelf life of your product? There are laboratories that will, for a fee, run all such tests for you. You can submit your recipe even, for an evaluation of its projected shelf stability. Remmember, some 90 year old widow gives one of your treats to her littly fluffy and he dies, and you have not established suitably the stability and safety of your product... well, some of those dogs can run into the very many thousands of dollars.

The same applies to foods for human consumption that are not made for immediate consumption. There are a few members here that are well versed in that type of food safety.

[crafty baker]

Hi there...
I consulted a whole foods store about the citric acid and they recommended the powder made by the company "NOW" I use herbal/aromatherapy products from the same company. So far, I have tested the stability by leaving a cookie unwrapped on my counter since this past Tuesday with no signs of mold. The rest of the batch is in the frig. I will also try to substiute the milk called for with dry powdered milk. Someone also suggested baking them longer at a lower temp/or using a food dehydrator.
I will certainly check out the link you provided and delve farther into the process! Again...Thank you!

[Sunshine650]

Have you found out any more on how to preserve your treats naturally? Does citric acid really work?
I have been playing around with batches of treats and making them as dry as possible seems to do the trick. Also I found out you can use Potassium Sorbate. Not really natural but it is not harmful either.It is also used in Wine making.
I would love to hear how you made out.

[amazingrace]

You are not so likely to have mold on an unwrapped cookie. A better test would be to simulate the actual packaging you plan to use.