A ham in the mold for cold cuts is traditionally cooked to a core temperature. Such cooking processes with large calibers are often run overnight. The equipment is then filled and the process is ready the next morning. Smart delta cooking helps save energy, maintain weight, and provides planning reliability.
At the very beginning, the chamber temperature was set at 80°C and we waited until the core temperature of the ham was at 72°C. This is a very energy-intensive process.However, this is very energy-intensive, damages the surface of the product and takes a lot of weight away from the product.
With the development to step cooking, intermediate steps were added and only moved to the core temperature towards the end.Somewhat better than just fixed temperature, but unpredictable with different loads and not significantly more efficient.
Modern is delta cooking, which defines a maximum distance between chamber temperature and core temperature. A maximum of 25°C is popular. This saves energy, but the working time is not predictable and the rise at the beginning is significantly higher than towards the end, which can lead to surface damage.
Smart Delta cooking answers all these challenges. It is based on delta cooking, but thinks ahead. In order to control the core temperature curve as accurately as possible, the delta cooking program must be structured differently. The program requires the following values in the programming:
The control system uses this data and the current core temperature value to calculate the program sequence. The basic question is: What does the linear core temperature curve look like if the core has to reach 72°C after 8 hours? When running this program, the control system designs the cooking process in such a way that the actual core temperature value runs as close as possible to the calculated setpoint value. This means that the heating is only ever used if this becomes necessary because the core temperature is too low. And with a maximum distance from core to chamber temperature of 25°C.
Since the core temperature increases slowly, the heating power is used in the delta cooking phase in a timed manner so that only as much energy is consumed as is necessary.
Since this program calculates and also controls a straight line from the start value to the target value for the course of the core temperature, an F-value to be expected can already be calculated during creation.This gives the user a very high degree of production reliability and consistency in quality.
Compared to step cooking or delta cooking, Smart Delta cooking achieves lower energy consumption and less weight loss.
EBSmoke was able to prove with long-term tests that Smart Delta cooking (differential temperature cooking) saves enormous amounts of energy. For this purpose, the existing control system of a 2-car system with low-pressure steam direct heating was replaced with the control system from EBSmoke.The existing control system ran with a step cooking program. Over a period of nine months, between 800 and 900 kg of boils were treated every night with the new Smart Delta boil.
Results:
Since this program calculates and also controls a straight line from the start value to the target value for the course of the core temperature, an expected F-value can already be calculated during creation. This gives the user a very high level of production reliability and consistency in quality. Compared to step cooking or delta-T cooking, it is possible to have lower energy consumption and less weight loss.
Due to the desired reliability of the comparative figures, the program was not further optimized during the test series. There is further potential for optimization in the chamber, which was not built for smart delta cooking. Nevertheless, quite glaring results can be read from the table. The two most important:
These results should help to make the inevitable path of F-value cooking easier to understand. With the new cooking program, there is an enormous potential for energy savings.
We would be pleased to support you in the development of a smart delta cooking process
