Controlling high temperature humidity in the bread manufacturing process influences bread production in three ways: storage, dough proofing, and baking. Innovative sensors from Reading Thermal travel through industrial ovens with bread, buns, or rolls and yields a precise profile of moisture experienced by the products.
Reading Thermal, a product brand of Reading Bakery Systems, is headquartered in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania. We have been studying, measuring, and understanding the commercial baking process for more than 25 years. We manufacture and support the SCORPION® 2 Profiling System that measures and maps key baking parameters and has become a standard in the baking industry.
Why is Humidity Profiling Important?
Humidity in a thermal process interacts with the product. The moisture in the environment often comes from the product itself and represents a delicate balance that can affect the quality of finished products in many ways:
- The amount of moisture left in a product can affect its shelf life.
- Reduced evaporation can keep the surface of a product moist, allowing it to stretch and preventing cracks.
- Low humidity in a cracker oven can cause blisters that lead to undesirable dark spots and excessive breakage.
- The lack of humidity in a cookie oven can cause case hardening that prevents internal moisture from escaping and leading to checking (the spontaneous cracking of the cookie after baking).
- High humidity in bread ovens produces the desirable glossy crust seen on many bread products. For this reason, steam injection is often used.
- High humidity assists with the killing of pathogens, such as the salmonella that is potentially found in surface toppings.
Advantages of our Digital Humidity Sensor
Our new Digital Humidity Sensor provides a better way to measure humidity in your oven, proofer, dryer and cooling tunnel.
Its breakthrough design provides a more accurate and reliable way to measure the absolute moisture content of the thermal environment. The sensor contains a proprietary humidity sampling system with patent pending Anti-Saturation Technology™ that allows measurements in high temperature and very high dew point processes.
15 Reasons to Buy or Upgrade to the Digital Humidity Sensor:
- Compatible with existing SCORPION® 2 Data Loggers
- Anti-Saturation Technology™ allows measurements in steam conditions
- Not affected by combustion gases in the baking chamber (DGF Ovens)
- Single sensor for low temp (%RH) and high temp (Absolute Humidity) applications
- % Moisture by Volume, Air Temp, Dew Point Temp and %RH displayed
- Dew Point measurements from 32°F (0°C) to 212°F (100°C)
- Relative Humidity measurement from 0% to 100% RH
- Two product probe inputs for product core temperature measurements
- Documents humidity during Kill Step Validation
- No preheating required
- No special thermal barriers required
- Increased dwell time
- Free software upgrade
- User-friendly ready light
- Compatible with 32mm tall systems
If your manufacturing process results in inconsistent product quality, moisture retention, or uneven baking, consider our other state-of-the-art sensors and sensor arrays, including the SCORPION® 2 Temperature Sensor Array, the SCORPION® 2 Air Velocity Sensor, and the SCORPION® 2 Heat Flux Sensor.
If you are looking for high temperature humidity sensors to measure humidity in your industrial ovens, Reading Thermal can help. Call us at (610) 678-5890 Ext. 2, or contact us online for more details about our innovative products.