Food shear test fixture CS-1

The main advantage of the Kramer Shear Cells (KSC), is that a large sample of the product can be tested at once. This gives a better average value of texture then testing one small piece of food multiple times and speeds texture assessment. The Kramer Shear Cell faithfully reproduces the actions of consumption by shearing, compressing and extruding the sample, measuring them together and providing increased reproducibility in a highly variable product. One side effect from testing such an increased sample size is that higher forces are generated as a result. Since competitor systems cannot supply the higher forces, mock up designs like the “Mini Kramer/Ottawa Shear Cell” were developed to try and copy this original Allo-Kramer design. In a sense this defeats one of the big advantages derived from the ability to test larger samples. Standard shear compression cellFTC offers two additional variations of the standard fixture, CS-1. One version is made with stainless steel blades and a Delrin cell (CS-1A) for high acid food samples, like diced tomatoes and salsa. The CS-1-TU is calibrated with fresh peas for Tenderometer use and must be "paired and calibrated" with a Model FTA-TU Force transducer before use.