Baking Oven

a heating installation for baking bread products; it is the most important piece of equipment used in commercial baking. A baking oven consists of a source of heat, a baking chamber usually equipped with a steam humidifier, a conveyor with facilities for loading the dough and unloading the bread, an automatic regulating system for the baking process, and a device to recover the heat of lost gases. The average temperature in the baking chamber is 200°–300°C, and the relative humidity is 15–70 percent. With respect to the nature of the working process and the equipment, baking ovens are similar to confectionery ovens.

Baking ovens are classified as batch or continuous ovens, depending on the method of operation, and as conventional and pass-through types (single-level and multilevel), depending on the design of the baking chamber. In conventional ovens the pieces of dough are loaded and the baked goods removed from the same side; in pass-through ovens the operations are performed from opposite sides. Ovens are also classified by the type of hearth. They may have cradle hearths suspended from a chain conveyor, plates mounted on a chain conveyor that form a continuous horizontal hearth, a lattice hearth in the form of a belt conveyor, a disk rotating about a vertical axis, a ring, or a draw plate or fixed sole hearth. Baking ovens are also classified according to the means used to heat the baking chamber. They may have tubular sections to which high-pressure saturated steam or superheated water is supplied, flat or tubular channels through which the combustion products of a fuel and recirculated gases are passed, or a baking chamber heated directly by electric heaters, gas burners, or infrared radiation lamps. Some use a combination of heating methods.

Baking ovens may be mechanized to various degrees. In automated ovens with conveyor hearths, the conveyor travel, heating conditions, and steam supply are automatically regulated, and the loading of dough pieces and unloading of the bread are mechanized or automated; provision is made for an automatic device to ensure safe fuel combustion. In mechanized ovens with conveyor hearths, the conveyor travel is regulated, the unloading of the finished goods is mechanized, and provision is made for an automatic device to ensure safe fuel combustion. Other mechanized ovens have disk or extensible hearths; they are being supplanted by more modern designs. Nonmechanized ovens are used only in small enterprises.

The productivity of baking ovens depends on the design and may be as high as 100–120 tons per day.