A Comparison of Infrared Bread Baking and Conventional Baking

Shortwave infrared radiation as a heating technique in bread baking has been found to have many advantages, for example, reduction of baking time to attain a desired quality of the baked bread. Other advantages, such as high heat transfer efficiency and penetration capability, as well as rapid control of the oven parameters, make it worthwhile considering shortwave IR radiation as a technique for bread baking. This study reports results on the control of bread baking in an infrared baking oven. The results have been compared with conventionally baked bread.A multi-stage procedure was used in the infrared baking oven where the initial power level was 100%, and, during the second stage the power level was either 30% or 50%. The air temperature in the conventional oven was 230°C. This method gave a baked bread with a subjectively desirable crust color and a baked crumb after 6 minutes, compared with 17 minutes in the conventional baking oven.It was also shown that, as the process parameters in the infrared overt could be varied and controlled precisely and rapidly, the crust formation could be controlled, and a crumb that is not over baked or under baked could be obtained simultaneously. To obtain the optimum crust thickness, the power level at the second stage had to be low, resulting in a somewhat longer baking time compared with the minimum time needed if only crust color and baked crumb were to be obtained.