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The Brabender MT-C provides a quick method for moisture determination on all types of material.

Based at Duisburg in Germany, Brabender specialises in the development, manufacture, and distribution of instruments and equipment for testing material quality and physical characteristics in all fields of research, development, and industrial production in the chemical and food industries worldwide.

At the core of Brabender business is the adaptation of measuring principles into easy to use, highly accurate, reliable and competitively-priced laboratory instruments for use within the food and drink industry.

Brabender instruments for the quality control of raw materials help customers to optimise their production processes. Indeed, some Brabender instruments are used not only in the laboratory but also at the production line to test the quality of products (like dough) as they are being processed.

The company’s laboratory instruments are used extensively in the milling, baking, starch, brewing, animal feed, chocolate and sugar confectionery, meat, cheese and snacks sectors of the food and drink industry.

“Our instruments provide customer with a good overview of the quality of the raw materials they are using, giving them with the information necessary to improve efficiency and to reduce costs,” says Markus Loens, senior sales director food of Brabender.

Founded in 1923 by Carl Wilhelm Brabender, the company developed the Farinograph system, which since being first introduced in 1928 has become the worldwide standard for testing flour.

The Farinograph

The Farinograph’s easy handling, reliability and the objectivity and reproducibility of its results have made it the instrument most frequently used all over the world for determining the water absorption and mixing characteristics of wheat and rye flour.

The determination of the flour quality and its processing characteristics are a basic demand in the milling and baking industries for ensuring optimum and uniform flour qualities for the production of bakery products and noodles. The Farinograph can measure the water absorption of flours; determine the rheological properties of the dough; check production and flour blends in the mill; test rye flour, sponge batters, egg foam, etc; and test full formula doughs.

The latest generation of Farinograph offers a number of advantages including an automatic water dosing system; extended software applications; variable speed (0-200 min-1); higher torque (20 Nm); coloured display to show temperatures; recording of two temperatures (dosing water and dough); and the calculation of mixing energy. A variety of mixing tools for the Farinograph are also available.

While well known for its use within the milling and baking industry, the Farinograph is also suitable for other applications such as chocolate, chewing gum, fish, cheese and meat.

Heavy Investment in R&D

Brabender invests heavily in R&D, which is reflected in its impressive track-record of innovation. “Our major strength is the excellent service that we offer customers along with our capacity for innovation. Every year we allocate a high percentage of our turnover to invest in research and development,” says Markus Loens. “We produce high quality instruments with exacting standards of accuracy and reproducibility. We are constantly looking for new developments.”

The percentage of the company’s turnover invested in R&D is in the high single-digits. Annual turnover is in excess of Eur20 million and Brabender currently employs 170 people. It can also draw upon the resources of its parent group, which employs 450 people.

Moisture Tester MT-C

Another major development by Brabender is the Moisture Tester MT-C. Used extensively in the brewing industry globally for the testing of barley and malt, Brabender’s Moisture Tester MT-C is also used in all sectors of the food industry where the accurate testing of moisture content is required.

The Brabender MT-C provides a quick method for moisture determination on all types of material, such as grain, flour and feedstuffs. The Brabender MT-C is an electronic moisture tester using the drying oven principle with moving air. Due to the continuous air flow within the drying chamber, the drying process takes considerably less time than in a conventional drying chamber without ventilation. The integrated software allows fully automatic measurement and saving of the results.

The MT-C offers numerous advantages over other instruments/methods for moisture determination (NIR, drying balances, dielectric instruments). No special calibration for different samples is required, it can measure up to ten samples at a time, determine the water content with an accuracy of < 0.1% and incorporates fully automatic re-weighing in the drying chamber after drying. It has a drying temperature up to 200 C and a measuring range (water content) of 0.1-99.9%.

The MT-C is also approved under German law in a special version, the MT-C/Z. The reason for this is the high accuracy and reproducibility of results and special software.

Support Services 

Brabender’s modern application laboratory is at the disposal of all customers and interested parties for trials with their own material. All Brabender’s measuring systems can be tested under practical conditions. An experienced expert team is available to assist with the tests and to answer any questions.