In the world of commercial baking, moisture is a key ingredient in your final product’s quality. From soft sandwich loaves to flaky pastries, getting the right moisture balance is essential to delivering a delicious product that meets your customers’ expectations. But when oven humidity is off, even by a little, it can lead to over-drying. That’s when baked goods lose their tender texture, shrink unnecessarily, or go stale faster than they should. Thankfully, Reading Thermal technology can make monitoring oven humidity for quality control easier and more reliable than ever.
Why Oven Humidity Matters More Than You Think
Humidity inside a commercial oven directly influences how much moisture is retained or lost during baking. If humidity levels are too low, baked goods can dry out faster than expected. The result? Cracked crusts, crumbly texture and shorter shelf lives. On the flip side, if humidity is too high, you might end up with soggy bottoms or underdeveloped crusts.
The goal is to find and maintain that perfect balance. Moisture evaporates from the surface of the product during baking, and the rate of that evaporation depends heavily on the relative humidity inside the oven. If that environment isn’t properly controlled, the product may lose more moisture than necessary, affecting everything from flavor to mouthfeel.
Preventing Overdrying with Real-Time Humidity Monitoring
Traditionally, many bakeries would rely on oven settings, visual cues, or manual testing to assess moisture loss. But those methods don’t tell the full story, especially at scale. Overdrying can happen gradually and inconsistently across batches, making it difficult to catch until you start seeing complaints or returns.
That’s where the SCORPION® 2 Digital Humidity Sensor from Reading Thermal comes in. This advanced system measures dew point temperature, absolute humidity, and relative humidity in real time as your product moves through the oven. Unlike traditional sensors that often struggle in high-heat, high-moisture environments, the SCORPION® 2 is designed for commercial bakeries. It uses Anti-Saturation Technology™, which allows it to function accurately even in challenging oven conditions.
By tracking humidity profiles during the bake, you gain immediate insight into how moisture is behaving throughout the oven zones. You can identify low-humidity areas that might be over-drying your product and adjust oven steam injection, airflow or temperature accordingly. Instead of guessing, you’re working with precise data, batch after batch.
Using Data to Improve Quality and Efficiency
Beyond preventing over-drying, humidity monitoring can help you improve your overall process efficiency. If you’re overcompensating with longer baking times or higher heat just to hit doneness targets, you may be losing more moisture than necessary. With the right humidity control, you can achieve optimal results at lower energy usage while protecting the integrity of your product.
Additionally, consistent humidity control helps standardize quality. Customers expect the same product every time, and variations in moisture content are one of the quickest ways to lose their trust. With real time monitoring, you can create repeatable profiles and ensure your baking conditions remain consistent from one shift to the next.
Overdrying doesn’t have to be an unavoidable part of baking. With the right technology in place, you can control oven humidity with confidence and protect the moisture content that makes your products shine. Reading Thermal’s SCORPION® 2 Digital Humidity Sensor gives you the tools to monitor, analyze, and adjust your oven environment in real time. Contact us online or call (01) 610-678-5890 for more information on how our products can aid in monitoring oven humidity for quality control.