GB618227A - Bread cooling and storage plant - Google Patents

Abstract

618,227. Bread cooling and storing chambers. SEVILLE, J. R., and BAKER PERKINS, Ltd. March 20, 1945, No. 7012. [Class 49] [Also in Group X] A plant in which bread loaves are cooled and thereafter stored comprises a chamber for the bread, means for circulating through the chamber cool air which is sufficiently moist to prevent undue evaporation loss, and means for alternatively circulating in the chamber air of the temperature and humidity suitable for storing the loaves. Air is driven by a fan 3 through a duct 1 into a chamber C containing stacked trolleys of hot loaves from the oven, and the air after passing through the chamber leaves the outlet 2 into a stack 6. At the suction side of the fan 3 is a chamber 4 in which air, taken in part from the atmosphere by a stack 5 and in part from the stack 6, is freed from dust and humidified by means of water sprays 22. The proportion of air passed out through the stack 6 to that recirculated is regulated by the position of dampers 7 and 8 in the stacks 5 and 6 and a damper 10 in a pipe 9 between the stacks 5 and 6, the dampers 7 and 8 being preferably opened together and the damper 10 simultaneously closed, or the reverse, by the agency of a thermostat or humidistat, e.g. by movement of an oilservo electric motor unit 27 connected through a pipe 28 to a temperature sensitive bulb 29 in the duct 1. On completion of the cooling of the loaves and consequent change over to storage conditions, air, humidified in a chamber 15 by steam boiled from water by means of an immersion heater 24, and heated, e.g. electrically, by a device 16, and preferably maintained at constant humidity and temperature with the aid of a thermostat and a humidistat, is driven by a fan 14 through a duct 12 and thence through slide-controlled apertures into the chamber C, the air leaving the chamber through slide-controlled apertures into a duct 13 for return to the fan 14. The change from cooling to storage conditions may be effected automatically by the aid of a time clock operated switch or by a switch operated upon attainment within the chamber C of a humidity or temperature indicative of cooling to the required extent.