Big and bigger production rates with Koenig ovens

Koenig is also prioritizing sustainability, safety and sanitation for oven innovation that caters to product trends, as the company observes the American market is moving to Europe’s favorite, artisan bread. Trends the company is considering for the design of its tunnel ovens include stone conveyor ovens, bigger lines with bigger baking surfaces to match, saving energy (heat recovery systems), and the ability to quickly swap between energy sources, from gas to electricity, or hydrogen. The increase in production rates means big lines, and therefore the oven has a bigger baking surface – the MDI STRATOS oven being a good solution to this kind of request,” Antonio Aiello, Technical Supervisor, Koenig, details. Custom solutions are the norm.

Several unique features can be found in Koenig tunnel ovens: the MDI PHAROS is highly customizable, for example, with its independent zones and insertions of convection sections. It provides three different heat transfer principles: conduction (with wire mesh, stone plate, or metal plate conveyors), radiation, natural and forced convection. A cross-section heat exchange allows even baking throughout the oven and can fine-tune baking of the product rows placed laterally.
The MDI STRATOS also includes the three heating methods and cross-section heat exchange. This oven is the choice for bakeries that can only assign a very small footprint for their oven, with a baking surface of up to 500 sqm. It features up to six decks, each with its own independent oven, which makes them suitable for baking various types of products simultaneously.

All under control
Automation features help control all process parameters. The MDI STRATOS and the SDI PHAROS models manage baking times by adjusting the conveyor speed with a frequency converter, via the Automatic Control System. This system also manages temperatures, thanks to the proportional integral derivative (PID) burners and the baking chamber and fumes thermocouples. Humidity is provided by the steamer at the oven’s infeed zone, then air extraction along the oven is managed with fans. Turbulences (air convection) can be integrated into specific sections on customized ovens. Every zone has its own burner. The single-deck PHAROS is the recommended choice when the line needs a big proofer room, which can be placed just above the oven.

SDI PHAROS and MDI STRATOS incorporate a system to fine-tune the flow distribution of fumes across the baking chamber’ heat exchanger: “This allows the heat transfer to be better adjusted to lateral product rows, preventing these rows from baking/drying incorrectly,” Aiello explains. For process accuracy and energy savings, each zone comes with its own power unit. For the MDI STRATOS, using several decks provides extra freedom in managing production rates, baking times and product distribution on the conveyor’s surface. The STRATOS can be upgraded by adding decks.

Baking times and temperatures are managed the same way for the SDD EOS. Depending on its length and the requested power for specific products and production rates, a series of independent radiant burners are installed along the oven, over and underneath the conveyor.

Depending on the types of products to be baked with Koenig’s tunnel ovens, a number of configurations can be custom-made, with different types of conveyors, different oven lengths and widths. More customizations can be made regarding the number and the length of zones, the burner capacities for each zone, the presence, location and number of turbulence sections, steaming, and the need to preheat conveyors.

Seamless production
A constant product flow is the result of good line management. At the same time, process optimization translates into energy savings. Koenig ovens go on stand-by when they detect the product flow upstream has stopped, which reduces wasting flash heat at the beginning of the product flow. “This is greatly helped by a product tracking tool that can show product flow and related interruption-beginning instances along the line,” Aiello adds. To adjust and improve production, automatically logged data about line and oven settings/behavior can be analyzed, together with the resulting product.

Going forward, Koenig anticipates an increase in the use of energy sources other than gas, oil, or electricity. Ovens will need to increasingly lower the consumption of whichever energy is used. Smart features will include computer vision at the end of the oven, for live feedback about the oven’s settings and quality measuring.