Control of final moisture content of food products baked in continuous tunnel ovens

McFarlane, I. (2006) Control of final moisture content of food products baked in continuous tunnel ovens. Measurement Science and Technology, 17. pp. 241-248. ISSN 1361-6501 doi: 10.1088/0957-0233/17/2/003

Abstract/Summary

There are well-known difficulties in making measurements of the moisture content of baked goods (such as bread, buns, biscuits, crackers and cake) during baking or at the oven exit; in this paper several sensing methods are discussed, but none of them are able to provide direct measurement with sufficient precision. An alternative is to use indirect inferential methods. Some of these methods involve dynamic modelling, with incorporation of thermal properties and using techniques familiar in computational fluid dynamics (CFD); a method of this class that has been used for the modelling of heat and mass transfer in one direction during baking is summarized, which may be extended to model transport of moisture within the product and also within the surrounding atmosphere. The concept of injecting heat during the baking process proportional to the calculated heat load on the oven has been implemented in a control scheme based on heat balance zone by zone through a continuous baking oven, taking advantage of the high latent heat of evaporation of water. Tests on biscuit production ovens are reported, with results that support a claim that the scheme gives more reproducible water distribution in the final product than conventional closed loop control of zone ambient temperatures, thus enabling water content to be held more closely within tolerance.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/36794
Identification Number/DOI	10.1088/0957-0233/17/2/003
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Agriculture, Policy and Development > Department of Crop Science
Uncontrolled Keywords	baked goods, moisture, physical properties, heat transfer modelling, automatic control
Publisher	IOP Publishing
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