Do you know what is happening inside your industrial bakery oven? The innovative SCORPION® 2 Profiling System and Data Logger from Reading Thermal will help you measure, capture, and record essential baking parameters so that you can bake your products to perfection.
Importance of Oven Profiling
Oven profiling is vital for maintaining the quality and consistency of your products; 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 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 causes excess blisters, which burn easily, causing undesirable dark spots.
- Excessive heat fluxes in industrial tunnel ovens can yield poor quality products in color, texture, height, crust hardness, crumb moisture, and flavor.
- Air velocity influences the final product’s texture, firmness, coloration, and baking time.
What Our Profiling System Can Measure
When you connect smart sensors and sensor arrays to the SCORPION® 2 Data Logger and let them travel through the oven with the product, the measurement system will capture the four key baking parameters:
Heat Flux
Oven heat flux is one of the best indicators of oven performance during baking. The SCORPION® 2 Heat Flux Sensor is designed to measure radiant and convective heat fluxes at the product level and displays the results in Btu/hr·ft2 or W/m2.
Temperature
Oven temperature has an effect on oven-spring, drying/dehydration, and color formation during baking. The Scorpion® 2 Temperature Sensor Array measures temperature at the product level, in fixed positions across the conveyor, and gives you a precise picture of temperatures that affect the product, from side to side and end-to-end.
Humidity
Our SCORPION® 2 Digital Humidity Sensor offers a breakthrough design that better measures humidity in your oven, proofer, dryer, and cooling tunnel. It travels through the oven with your product, yielding a detailed profile of moisture experienced by the product.
Air Velocity
Airflow comes from the moving conveyor, the exhaust system, and natural combustion air currents in a radiant oven. In a convection oven, it comes primarily from the air distribution plenums. Measuring the oven air velocity with the SCORPION® 2 Air Velocity Sensor will help you identify differences in airflow between baking zones and unwanted air currents at the entrance or exit of the oven that results in inconsistent baking.
By utilizing oven profiling technology from Reading Thermal for measuring critical parameters during your baking process, you will acquire information about temperature, air velocity, heat flux, and humidity that you can use to make reliable data-based decisions about your processes and products. Contact us online, or call (610) 678-5890 Ext. 2 to explore our innovative line of products.