Design and Construction of a Batch Oven for Investigation of Industrial Continuous Baking Processes

摘要

A new batch oven has been constructed to mimic industrial convection tunnelnovens for research and development of continuous baking processes. The processnparameters (air flow, air temperature, air humidity, height of baking area and thenbaking band velocity) are therefore highly controllable and adjustable over a widenrange of settings. It is possible to monitor the product weight and temperaturencontinuously during baking. The simultaneous measuring of mass and a windownallowing for visual (e.g., by video recording) control is unique for this experimentalnbatch oven. Two validation steps have been carried out. The uniformity ofnheating in the oven was assessed by measurements of local heat transfer coefficientsnand confirmed by baking tests. The methods showed that the oven is able tonheat and bake uniformly across the baking area. Hereafter, the oven was validatednagainst a commercial 10-m tunnel oven, with a butter cookie as the test product.nThe investigated quality parameters for the butter cookies were mass loss andnsurface browning, where the uniformity of browning was evaluated subjectivelynagainst a scale of standards and objectively by L* value measurements. Goodnreproducibility of the baking was documented over a range of temperatures (160Cnto 190C).