Temperature, air flow, heat flux, and humidity in your industrial oven in the UK can have a major impact on the quality and consistency of your products. Bake your products to perfection with data logging systems from Reading Thermal.
Reading Thermal, a Reading Bakery Systems brand located in Sinking Spring, PA, has manufactured and supported the SCORPION® 2 Profiling System and Data Logger for over 25 years.
This powerful diagnostic tool has become an industry standard for understanding and improving bakery proofing, baking, cooling and freezing processes and for FSMA kill-step validation.
Top Reasons to Profile Your Industrial Oven
Oven profiling is important for product quality and consistency, for example:
- Insufficient heat during baking can cause crusts to be brittle or dry, and can create products that are too light in color and structures that are too dense.
- Excessive heat will cause moisture to evaporate too quickly, and the dough to rise unevenly. It can also cause the bottoms of loaves to burn before the crusts brown correctly.
- High oven humidity can lighten the crust color of baked goods and prevent them from burning.
- Lower humidity typically results in crustier bread.
- Lack of humidity in a cracker oven cause excess blisters to develop, which burn easily, causing undesirable dark spots.
- Excessive heat fluxes in industrial tunnel ovens can yield poor quality products in terms of color, texture, height, crust hardness, crumb moisture, and flavor.
- Air velocity influences the coloration, texture, firmness, and baking time of the final product.
Sensor Measurements
Connecting smart sensors and sensor arrays to the SCORPION® 2 Data Logger and passing them through the oven with the product, enables the measurement system to capture the four main baking parameters:
1) Temperature: Oven temperature has an impact on oven-spring, drying/dehydration, and color formation during baking. Insufficient or excessive heat can also lead to unwelcome changes in texture and taste. The Scorpion® 2 Temperature Sensor Array measures the temperature at product level, in fixed positions across the conveyor, and delivers a precise picture of temperatures from side-to-side and end-to-end.
2) Air velocity: In a convection oven, the airflow comes primarily from the air distribution plenums. In a radiant oven, it comes from the moving conveyor, the exhaust system, and natural combustion air currents. Measuring oven air velocity with the SCORPION® 2 Air Velocity Sensor is crucial because airflow will influence the texture, firmness, coloration, and baking time of the final product. The profiles will help you spot airflow differences between baking zones and undesirable air currents at the entrance or exit of the oven that can cause inconsistent baking.
3) Heat flux: Specific product characteristics are defined by the amount and type of heat applied during the baking process. The differences explain why one oven bakes differently than another. And analyzing and controlling these differences is critical to understanding how the finished characteristics of a product will be affected. The SCORPION® 2 Heat Flux Sensor measures radiant and heat fluxes at product level and displays the results in Btu/hr·ft2 or convective W/m2.
4) Humidity: Humidity is the amount of water vapor in the air. As your products bake, they use the available moisture in your oven. Without humidity, the quality and texture of your products will not turn out as expected. High oven humidity can lighten the crust color of baked goods and prevent it from burning. Lower humidity typically results in crustier bread. Global bakeries trust the SCORPION® 2 Humidity Sensor, to accurately measure the absolute moisture content of the thermal environment in heating and cooling processes.
With the help of Reading Thermal industrial oven data logging systems, you will be able to bake superior products and comply with FSMA kill-step validation requirements. Contact us online, call our UK representative Martin Rafter at +44 (0)1733 567890, or call our headquarters in the USA at (610) 678-5890 Ext. 2 to learn more.