Food Science B

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Re: Food Science B

Post by Frost0125 »

Does anyone have tips on building salinometers?
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Re: Food Science B

Post by pikachu4919 »

Frost0125 wrote: October 2nd, 2019, 11:42 am Does anyone have tips on building salinometers?

You could consult Water Quality teammates and resources for that since building a salinometer has been a part of that event throughout all of its existence. Most of the ones I've seen use a straw with clay on one end and are calibrated empirically. There's always the last case option of tasting the water, but the supervisor might kick you out of the event for that :P
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Re: Food Science B

Post by srmfian »

From our couch that she said Food Science has few new topics this year....Is that true?
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Re: Food Science B

Post by Frost0125 »

My partner and I are in the process of building a salinometer. We are having a problem right now where our salinometer floats at the same line for multiple salt percentages. Does anyone have any idea what might be wrong?
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Re: Food Science B

Post by gz839918 »

Frost0125 wrote: October 5th, 2019, 1:07 pm My partner and I are in the process of building a salinometer. We are having a problem right now where our salinometer floats at the same line for multiple salt percentages. Does anyone have any idea what might be wrong?
See if getting a new thinner straw will help.
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Re: Food Science B

Post by Miceinthestreet »

For the moisture content of a pickle, I think you use the salinometer/hydrometer to determine the amount of water in a part of the pickle.
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Re: Food Science B

Post by srmfian »

Can we use a multimeter to be an alternate for salinometer?
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Re: Food Science B

Post by knightmoves »

srmfian wrote: October 7th, 2019, 8:00 am Can we use a multimeter to be an alternate for salinometer?
Only if you built the multimeter.

"a participant-made salinometer/hydrometer"
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Re: Food Science B

Post by gz839918 »

srmfian wrote: October 7th, 2019, 8:00 am Can we use a multimeter to be an alternate for salinometer?
No, unless you built it yourself (assuming the nationals committee releases the same clarification as water quality). Even if you were allowed to use a multimeter, I would seriously dissuade it, because I don't know how thick the leads are, and they may corrode with usage and contaminate the solution.

You could build your own multimeter, but many aspects of electrical salinometers are difficult to work with, and potentially even dangerous. To start, you might consider measuring voltage across two jumper wires. But jumper wires are usually copper, and then you have to deal with your wires corroding. Okay, so you might choose a low-corrosion material like stainless steel. But stainless steel releases chromium when it corrodes, which is dangerous to your health. Okay, so you might choose a low-corrosion material without chromium, like gold. But gold is expensive, and it may not even work (but pretty much nobody on the forums actually knows because we've never tried).

As you can see, bringing your own multimeter for salinity testing can ensnare you with more troubles than anticipated. If your team has people good with chemistry, you could consider making one, but make sure to build one at the same time as you build a straw one, because an electrical one will fail unexpectedly before competition, or the calibration will suddenly go awry, or it won't be done as fast as you think. It'll take a strong mind to not give up, but if your team is dedicated, I hope you succeed!
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Re: Food Science B

Post by YanaB »

Hi, I was wondering if anyone would like to trade for Food Science? I am currently working on a test and have some notes. Also, I was wondering how do people get all of those google drives filled with tests through trading?
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