Estimating Baking Time for a Bakery Furnace Using Radiation Network Analysis

Baking of bread is a major global activity, largely carried out using traditional wood-fired furnaces, particularly in the Africa and Indian continent. Literature shows that the specific wood consumption for traditional design of a wood-fired bakery is around 0.9 kg of wood/kg of wheat bread baked, which is very high. This can be reduced by reducing the heat losses from furnaces during intervention of operators, e.g. frequent opening and closing of the door, mainly to decide the cycle time by checking the quality of the baking of bread. A typical frequency of door opening reported in the literature is ‘three’ for any batch. The baking time for a particular batch is influenced by the total heat possessed and radiated by walls of the baking furnace. Hence, the total time for baking varies for each subsequent batch of baking. This makes it difficult to determine a standard baking time. The present work is aimed at improving the baking efficiency of the furnace. Under this a mathematical determination of the time required for a standard baking cycle, which can reduce the frequency of the door opening. This way of operation can also reduce the carbon footprint and cost of baking of bread.