Production of conveyor belts for the baking and cooling of bread

The working process in industrial bakeries requires a rapid pace and a high level of production, to sustain such speed it is necessary to implement automated systems of handling the product. There are two areas in particular in the bakery where the conveyor belts prove to be useful:

• In the ovens, where the dough is cooked at high-temperatures
• In the tunnels where takes place the process of cooling the bread almost cooked

The conveyor belts for the bakery

In the realization of conveyor belts for the production of bread (as well as those used in the confectionery sector) the first problem is for sure the temperature. In fact, an oven can reach also 300 degrees centigrade, so we have a space where the thermal expansion of metal becomes a major factor. For this reason, the conveyor belts for the bakery are preferably made of carbon steel, which can support without damage at even higher temperatures.
A second important element is the sizes of the wire mesh of the belt, which have opposite requirements in the baking and cooling process. In the first case, in fact, the dough of the bread is thick and very soft, tending to insinuate in the wire mesh, dirtying it and damaging the product and also leaving residue that would burn in the oven. For all these reasons are preferred conveyor belts with a very closed opening, create an almost flat surface. Completely different is the situation in the bread cooling tunnel: here it is necessary that the air circular as freely as possible, the bread, already cooked, no longer risks leaving something on the belt, so the wire mesh is chosen with an opening much wider, that guarantee a perfect ventilation.

The technical measures taken by Larioreti for the conveyor belts for the bakery

The conveyor belts for the bakery industry are not limited to the necessary customization in order to guarantee the correct operation described before, but our attention is aimed always to realize a product tailored to the needs of each customer. In the case of the production of bread, are usually not necessary additional accessories or special procedures for the surface treatment of the belt. However, we can work on the drag, that is realized with or without a side chain for the belt that carries bread through the cooking ovens (both solutions suffer to a minimum extent the problem of thermal expansion). For the cooling tunnel, where we have no risks of damage or misalignment due to the thermal expansion, we can opt for a sprockets system, more optimized for minimizing the necessaries related to the maintenance. To conclude, obviously, it is possible to require the certificate of conformity of the carbon steel wire used, so that comply with any legal duty.