Monitoring and controlling the humidity in your industrial bakery oven can take your baking to a whole new level. The SCORPION® 2 Humidity Sensor and profiling system from Reading Thermal can help you achieve excellent results. With the right amount of humidity, your products will bake efficiently.
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 Logging Measurement System which measures and maps the key 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 is Humidity Profiling Important?
Products passing through a thermal process interact with the amount of moisture in the environment. 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.
- The moisture that remains in a pretzel after baking can impact its shelf life.
- Reducing evaporation can keep the surface of your cookies moist, allowing them to stretch without cracking.
- High oven humidity can lighten the crust color of baked goods.
- Some products need to maintain surface condensation to produce a concentrated sugar solution that gives the surface a glaze.
- The amount of moisture in a finished product can directly affect breakage during the packaging process.
Using quality ingredients and careful handling throughout the various stages of production are not enough to create a quality product unless the temperature and humidity of the oven are carefully monitored and regulated.
How to Measure Oven Humidity
Bakeries all over the world rely on the SCORPION® 2 Humidity Sensor, which measures the absolute 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.
Mechanically, the humidity sensor has a high temperature moisture sensor, a low temperature moisture sensor, and a bulk air or dry bulb temperature sensor. In ovens, the humidity sensor can be used to document the relationship between oven moisture and finished product moisture. In Cooling Tunnels, it can be used to monitor dew point temperature to prevent condensation on the product surface.
Are you experiencing inconsistent product quality, moisture retention, uneven bakes, or low production capacity? Reading Thermal provides the SCORPION® Profiling Service to assist customers at their own locations with problem-solving.
We use the state-of-the-art SCORPION® Data Logging Measurement System to collect thermal profiles of temperature (air, band, product), air velocity, heat flux, and humidity. We can analyze a single line or perform multi line comparison studies to determine what is causing problematic processing conditions and produce solutions.
What is happening inside your industrial bakery oven? Consider the SCORPION® 2 Humidity Sensor from Reading Thermal, and our other innovative sensors and sensor arrays to improve your products and processes. Contact us online, or call our headquarters in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania at (610) 678-5890 Ext. 2 to learn more.