Why we’re moving to IR heating for industrial baking
Let’s be honest: waiting for a massive convection oven to heat up is a drag. You’re basically paying to heat up a giant box of air before the food even feels a thing. It’s slow, and it burns through electricity. That’s why more shops are switching to stainless steel infrared (IR) heaters to hit those “green” targets. The trick here is that IR doesn’t bother with the air. It just sends energy straight into the food. It’s almost instant. Instead of waiting for the whole chamber to get hot, we use short or medium-wave emitters. The second you flip the switch, the product reacts. No more endless pre-heating. You hit your target temps faster, and your power bill actually looks a bit better at the end of the month. Now, the hardware side of things matters. We wrap these IR arrays in stainless steel because baking environments are humid, and rust is the enemy. We usually keep the emitters in quartz casings to keep everything clean. One little detail that makes a huge difference? The reflector. By putting a stainless steel mirror behind the IR tube, we push all that heat forward into the oven instead of letting it soak into the machine’s frame. But you have to be careful with the power. These tubes put out a lot of heat, very quickly. If your fans aren’t working in sync with the IR, you’ll end up with a burnt crust and a raw center. The secret is pairing the IR with a steady, modulated airflow to keep things balanced. There are some trade-offs, of course. IR heaters take up way less space and react faster than old-school coils, but they’re picky. Placement is everything. If your tray is just a couple of centimeters too far from the heater, your browning will be uneven. You have to get your racking system exactly right. And since these things heat up so fast, you’ll need a control system that can handle rapid switching (PWM) so you don’t accidentally overshoot your temperature and ruin a batch.