JPH01119214A - Automatic bread maker - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To appropriately control fermentation process by providing a sound wave detecting means for detecting permeability to sound wave through bread material and a controlling means for controlling the fermentation process based on the detected permeability. CONSTITUTION: A sound wave transmitting part 15 and a sound wave receiving part 16 are provided on the side face of a heating tank 5 to form a sound wave transmission path 18 in a container. In addition, a controlling part 25 performs process control based on results of detection from the sound wave receiving part 16 and a temp. detecting means 27. In addition, control of fermentation process is performed based on condition of change in permeability of sound wave in a bread dough. It is possible thereby to automatically perform good bread making regardless of seasons, open air temp. and humidity in difference in regions influencing to process work.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Purpose of the invention] (Industrial application field) This invention is self! Regarding the ll9tJ bread machine.

(Prior Art) As the consumption of bread has increased in recent years, various types of bread makers have been appearing on the market.

In a bread maker, bread is made by kneading the ingredients such as flour, yeast, a small amount of butter, sugar, etc. with water, allowing it to undergo primary fermentation, degassing, then secondary fermentation, and further degassing. After shaping and fermenting, finish by baking.
This is done through the conventional bread-making process.

By the way, among the bread manufacturing processes, the fermentation process is a molded process mainly for giving the bread an appropriate amount of rise. Therefore, in the fermentation process, the fermentation speed is affected by seasonal and regional differences in temperature and humidity, initial material temperature, yeast fermentation power, type of materials, composition, etc., so it is necessary to control the process by taking these factors into account. is necessary.

(Problem to be solved by the invention) However, in the method in which humans perform the fermentation process by adjusting the fermentation time and yeast length, it is virtually impossible to make adjustments in advance based on the factors mentioned above. To decide when to finish, subjective methods were used, such as visually determining the increase in volume, or making a hole in the dough with a finger and determining how well the hole returned. For this reason, it was difficult and time-consuming to always make bread with uniform results. In addition, in automatic bread makers, fermentation is generally controlled only by temperature and time, and the above-mentioned factors are not considered, resulting in under-fermentation or over-fermentation.
There was a possibility that the quality of the bread would not be good.

The present invention has been made in view of the above, and its object is to provide an automatic bread maker that appropriately controls the fermentation process and is capable of making good bread.

[Structure of the Invention] (Means for Solving the Problems) In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an automatic bread maker that automatically produces bread from bread ingredients through at least a fermentation process. The gist of the present invention is to include a sound wave detection means for detecting the transmittance of sound waves in the material, and a control means for determining the fermentation state based on the detected transmittance and controlling the fermentation process.

(Function) In the automatic bread maker according to the present invention, focusing on the fact that there is a correlation between the transmittance of sound waves in bread dough and the state of progress of fermentation in the fermentation process, the transmittance of sound waves is The fermentation process is controlled based on the detection results.

(Example A) Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in detail using the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view showing the structure of an automatic bread maker according to the embodiment wlALI4 of the present invention. The characteristic of this is that during the fermentation process, which is an important step in bread manufacturing, as time passes, bubbles mainly composed of carbon dioxide gas generated by the yeast are generated inside the bread dough, and the apparent volume of the bread dough increases. As shown in Figure 3, by focusing on the fact that the transmittance of sound waves within the bread dough increases as fermentation progresses, the end of fermentation can be determined by detecting an increase in transmittance that corresponds to an appropriate fermentation state. It is in.

In FIG. 1, numeral 1 is a container in which various ingredients for making bread are put into and the bread is produced through a predetermined process that will be described later, and is installed in a heating tank 5 with a heater 3 around the bottom. . A blade 13 is provided at the bottom of the container 1, which is fixed to the rotation @ 12 of a motor 11 installed at the bottom of the main body 9, and is rotated as the motor 11 is driven to stir the material.

On the other hand, a sound wave transmitter 15 and a sound wave receiver 16 are provided on the side surface of the heating tub 5 at positions facing each other with the container 1 interposed therebetween.
A sound wave propagation path 18 can be formed within the container 1. That is, these are for forming the sound wave propagation path 18 at least in the fermentation process and detecting the sound wave transmittance in the sound wave propagation path 1B based on the sound wave reception level in the sound wave receiving section 16. Note that the sound wave transmitter 15 is
The acoustic wave receiving section 16 has a configuration including an ultrasound imaging cable 19 and an acoustic impedance matching device 20, and a configuration including a reception impedance matching device 21 and a reception imaging element 22. The operation of both of them is controlled by a control unit 25, which will be described later. For example, a so-called Colpitts oscillation circuit as shown in FIG. For example, a circuit as shown in FIG. 3 is used. Specifically, in the circuit shown in FIG. 3, the voltage generated by the receiving camera 22 is amplified by the transistor 23 and the OP amplifier 24, and the resulting alternating current signal is rectified and output to the state determination section 29 of the control section 25, which will be described later. The configuration is as follows.

In addition, in FIG. 1, 17 is an outer lid provided with a glass window 18 for visually observing the inside of the container 1, and 27 is a sound wave receiving section 1.
6 is a temperature detection means for detecting the temperature inside the container 1, and the detection result is output to the control section 25. Also, 4
0 is an operation panel.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the control section 25 and its peripheral circuit blocks. The control unit 25 controls the heater 3 and/or the temperature based on the detection results from the sonic wave receiving unit 16 and the temperature detecting unit 27.
Alternatively, process control is performed by controlling the motor 11. In FIG. 4, 29 mainly refers to the sound wave receiving section 16.
This is a status determination unit that determines the progress status of the fermentation process by receiving sound wave transmittance information from the fermentation process, and is composed of a microcomputer or the like. Note that this state determining section 29 is similar to the sound wave transmitting section 15.
It also controls the operation of the Further, 31 is a temperature control section that controls the temperature of the heater 3 based on the detection result from the temperature detection means 27 under the control of the state judgment section 29 . Further, 33 controls the driving of the motor 11 under the control of the state determining section 29.
This is a motor control unit that performs I, l1IIl. In addition, as a temperature control method of the heater 3 by the temperature control unit 31, for example, on-off control or the like can be considered with the energizing voltage of the heater 3 being constant.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained using FIG. 5. Note that FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the energization status of the heater 3 and the motor 11 and the change status of the sound wave transmittance in the sound wave propagation path 18 as the bread manufacturing process progresses.

First, at the start of bread making, when the required bread ingredients are put into the container 1 and a predetermined start switch (not shown) of the operation unit 25 is operated, the state determination unit 29 controls the bread ingredients to be transferred to the motor. 11 rotates the blades 13 and kneads for a predetermined time to form bread dough. This is the so-called kneading process.

The state determining unit 29 determines whether t? At the end of the fermentation process, the sound wave transmitter 15 is started to operate, and after detecting the sound wave transmittance in the sound wave transmission path 18 at that time, the primary fermentation process begins. The sound wave transmittance at this point is at a low level because there is almost no gas generation due to fermentation and the sound attenuation in the sound wave propagation path 18 is due to the composition of the dough. - J3 is in the next fermentation process, state judgment section 2
9 is U rJI 1. II 10 The heater 3 is energized via the section 31 to maintain the temperature inside the container 1 at a predetermined fermentation temperature (for example, 28°C), and the sound wave propagation path 18 is controlled based on the detection result by the sound wave receiver 16. Start monitoring the sound wave transmittance. Then, when the state determining unit 29 detects that the sound wave transmittance due to an increase in bubbles mainly composed of carbon dioxide gas generated by the yeast as fermentation progresses has increased by a predetermined amount ΔD+ compared to the start of the primary fermentation, the state determining unit 29 activates the heater 3 While stopping the power supply to finish the primary fermentation, the motor 11 is driven to perform gas handling work for a certain period of time in order to bring out the flavor of the bread. Note that this degassing operation collapses air bubbles, resulting in a decrease in sound wave transmittance.

After this degassing operation is completed, secondary fermentation and molding fermentation are sequentially performed, but the end of the fermentation operation is similar to the primary fermentation, when the sound wave transmittance increases by a predetermined amount (ΔD2, ΔD3) during each fermentation operation. By detection of. The temperature of the heater 3 during molding fermentation is set to a slightly higher temperature (for example, 38° C.) than during the second and second fermentations.

In the baking process after forming and fermenting, the state determining unit 29 maintains and controls the temperature of the heater 3 at a predetermined baking temperature (for example, 160° C.) that is higher than that during the fermentation process.
Process control is performed based on changes in the gas 5tlI within.

In addition, it is generally said that fermentation is best when the apparent volume of the bread dough has expanded to approximately double, so the optical path length within the gas bubbles that fill the sound wave propagation path 18 is approximately 1/1/2 of the total optical path length. It becomes 2. Since the inside of the bubble is a gas whose main component is carbon dioxide, it has a good transmittance to sound, and the sound passes through with almost no attenuation. Therefore, at the end of fermentation, about twice as much sound reaches the sound wave receiver 16 at t11 as compared to the sound wave transmittance measured immediately after the end. Fermentation continues even at the beginning of the baking process, so if it is better to double the apparent volume, it is desirable to start the baking process a little earlier than that.

Therefore, according to this embodiment, the fermentation process is controlled based on changes in the sound wave transmittance within the dough, so various factors such as temperature and humidity due to seasonal and regional differences that affect the process can be controlled. It is possible to automatically make good bread regardless of the conditions. Moreover, the completion time of fermentation can be predicted from the temporal change in the sound wave transmittance, which can contribute to improving the efficiency of bread production.

Furthermore, similar fermentation control based on light transmittance is possible, but there is a risk of being affected by external light from the glass window 18 of the outside i17, and the hydraulic type is better from the viewpoint of 1 g resistance. It is excellent.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention, in the fermentation process, by focusing on the fact that there is a correlation between the sonic transmittance in bread dough and the progress of fermentation, the sonic transmittance is improved. Since the fermentation process is controlled based on the detection results, the fermentation process can be appropriately controlled, thereby making it possible to make good bread.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 and FIG.
The figure shows a circuit used in this embodiment, FIG. 4 shows a control circuit block in this embodiment, and FIG. 5 shows a control circuit block in this embodiment.
The figure is a diagram for explaining the operation of this embodiment. 1... Container 3... Heater 5... Heating tank 7... Support stand 9... Main body 1
1... Motor 13... Vane 15... Sound wave transmitter 16... Sound wave receiver 17... Outer lid 25
...Control unit 27...Temperature detection means 29.
...Status judgment part 31...Temperature control part 33...Motor control part] 411 person girl,, child doctor male N1 figure

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] An automatic bread maker that automatically manufactures bread from bread ingredients through at least a fermentation process, comprising: a sound wave detection means for detecting the transmittance of sound waves in the bread ingredients; An automatic bread maker comprising: a control means for determining the fermentation state based on the fermentation state and controlling the fermentation process.