AN INVESTIGATION ON BREAD BAKING BY MICROWAVE BAKING IN COMPARISON WITH CONVENTIONAL BAKING

Bread is considered as the most important product in Iranian families food diet. Iranian breads are baked in conventional ovens, under direct or indirect flames, which causes the bread not to be of a good quality. Using of adequate heating technique like microwave in which there is no need to thermal gradient for energy transformation, reduces pert of bread and energy usage. For considering the energy consumption in bread baking the moisture and temperature changes during baking barbari (a kind of Iranian bread) are measured in two method of microwave and conventional The analyses of results showed that for low final temperature of product in microwave baking, the necessary energy measured for heating of dough is about 6% and total need energy is 25.7% less than usual baking. The output energy is also equal to 56.5% in microwave baking and the time of baking is about 6.5 time less than conventional baking. The results also showed that the critical moisture is equal to 34%.