Explore what is happening inside your industrial bakery oven. Humidity measurement with the SCORPION® 2 Profiling System and Data Logger and the Digital Humidity Sensor from Reading Thermal can improve your products and processes.
Reading Thermal, a Reading Bakery Systems brand, has been focused on measuring and understanding the commercial baking process for over 25 years. We manufacture and support the SCORPION® 2 Data Logger, the ‘brain’ of the measurement system, which measures and maps the critical baking parameters of temperature, air velocity, heat flux, and humidity.
The SCORPION® 2 enables you to monitor actual in-process conditions and get the critical information you need to correct problems and maintain optimum process control. This powerful diagnostic tool has become an industry standard for understanding and improving your proofing, baking, cooling, and freezing processes.
Why Humidity Profiling is Important
Humidity is the amount of water vapor held in the air. As your products bake, they use the available moisture inside your oven. Without this humidity, the quality and texture of your products will not turn out as you expected.
The moisture often comes from the product itself and represents a delicate balance that can affect the quality of finished products in many ways. For example:
- High humidity inside the oven can lighten the crust color of baked goods and prevent them from burning.
- High humidity inside the oven can increase the volume of your baked goods by keeping the moisture locked inside instead of evaporating.
- Lower humidity typically results in crustier bread.
- Reducing evaporation can keep the surface of a cookie moist, allowing it to stretch and preventing cracks.
- Humid air more efficiently transfers heat to products and cooks them more rapidly.
- After baking, the amount of moisture left in a pretzel affects its shelf life.
- Some products need to maintain surface condensation to produce a concentrated sugar solution that glazes the surface.
- The amount of moisture in your finished product can directly affect breakage during packaging.
Measuring Oven Humidity
Our SCORPION® 2 Digital Humidity Sensor measures the absolute moisture content of the thermal environment in both heating and cooling processes. The sensor travels through the oven with your product, yielding a detailed profile of moisture experienced by the product.
Mechanically, the Digital Humidity Sensor includes an Air Temperature sensor, two inputs for Product Core Temperature Measurement, and a proprietary humidity sampling system to measure Dew Point Temperature, Absolute Humidity, and Relative Humidity.
The sampling system contains patent-pending Anti-Saturation Technology™, allowing measurements in very high dew point environments, such as steam injection.
The Digital Humidity Sensor is engineered to be compatible with direct gas-fired (DGF) ovens. Unlike oxygen sensor technology, which can be off by up to 25% due to combustion gases in DGF ovens, the accuracy of the Digital Humidity Sensor remains the same regardless of the oven platform.
Take advantage of the state-of-the-art SCORPION® Data Logging Measurement System from Reading Thermal for oven humidity measurement and other essential oven profiles. Contact us online, or call our headquarters in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania, at (610) 678-5890 Ext. 2 to learn more.