In-line measurement of the density of semi-finished bread products when baking bread using sourdough and sourdough

Abstract

When baking bread and bakery products using sourdough and sourdough, an important point of the technology is to ensure the exact dosage of all components. Therefore, for the dosage of liquid sourdough and starter cultures, as a rule, a weight method of measuring their mass is used. However, the weighing method leads to large errors due to the large weight of the bowl itself. There is also an easier way to determine the mass of the sponge by measuring the flow rate when pumping it with volumetric piston pumps. However, since the active formation of CO2 gas occurs during the pumping of sourdough and especially sourdough, the density of the pumped sourdough is constantly changing. And this circumstance is fundamental and does not allow using this method as leading to unacceptable errors. The paper describes a method for determining the density of the current sponge by measuring its dielectric constant. A cylindrical microwave resonator is used as a density sensor, in the center of which a sponge flows. The information parameters are the frequency of the resonator, which varies in direct proportion to the density of the support. An experimental determination of the support density is described, carried out simultaneously by two methods – by weight and using a microwave resonator. It was found that they match with good accuracy. This opens the way to the creation of a kneading machine equipped with a technique for accurately measuring the density of the current sponge. At the same time, the weighing procedure is excluded, which leads to simplification of the entire technological process of preparing the dough for baking and reducing its complexity.