Ignoring the performance of your commercial bakery ovens can be risky. Choosing a humidity data recorder from Reading Thermal will provide the critical information you need to understand and improve the processes that affect your products.
Reading Thermal, a Reading Bakery Systems brand headquartered in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania, has measured the commercial baking process for more than 25 years. We manufacture and support the SCORPION® 2 Profiling System which has become a standard in the baking industry for monitoring actual in-process conditions.
Our Digital Humidity Sensor is designed to measure the moisture content of the thermal environment in both heating and cooling processes. The sensor travels through the oven with the product, yielding a precise profile of moisture it experiences.
Why Measure Oven Humidity?
Products interact with the amount of moisture in the environment as they pass through the thermal process. This moisture often comes from the product itself and represents a delicate balance affecting finished product quality in many ways. For example:
- High oven humidity can increase the volume of your baked goods by keeping the moisture locked inside instead of evaporating.
- Humid air more efficiently transfers heat to products and cooks them more rapidly.
- High oven humidity can lighten the crust color of baked goods.
- Reducing evaporation can keep the surface of cookies moist, allowing them to stretch and preventing cracks.
- Some products must maintain surface condensation to produce a concentrated sugar solution that gives the surface a glaze.
- The amount of moisture left in products after baking can impact their shelf life.
- The amount of moisture in a finished product can directly affect breakage during the packaging process.
Digital Humidity Sensor Advantages
The new Digital Humidity Sensor from Reading Thermal provides a better way to measure humidity in your oven, proofer, dryer and cooling tunnel. Its innovative design offers a more accurate and reliable way to measure the absolute moisture content of the thermal environment. The sensor’s proprietary humidity sampling system with patent pending Anti-Saturation Technology™ allows measurements in high temperature and very high dew point processes.
Mechanically, the humidity sensor has a high temperature moisture sensor, a low temperature moisture sensor, and a bulk air or dry bulb temperature sensor. Use it in ovens to document the relationship between oven moisture and finished product moisture. Use it in cooling tunnels to monitor dew point temperature to prevent condensation on the product surface.
The humidity in your bakery oven can have a major impact on the quality and consistency of your products. The SCORPION® 2 Profiling System with Digital Humidity Sensor and data recorder from Reading Thermal can help you bake your products to perfection. Contact us online, or call us at (610) 678-5890 Ext. 2 to learn more about our innovative products.