HOSPITALITY: Heat and cooling under control

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Professional catering provides for food processing in which temperature is an extremely critical parameter hardly detected. Italcoppie Sensori has developed specific solutions for this kind of applications.

by Marika Comotti

Core probe for blast chillers with heating element

No matter whether cooking or refrigeration are at stake, the quality of the final result will considerably depend on a good temperature control that can assure a compromise between the food safety and its quality. In recent years, the product core temperature measuring has successfully spread: this allows a very fine parameter regulation but, at the same time, it represents a very burdensome condition for the sensor, which needs a very accurate design. Italcoppie Sensori can boast a long expertise in this sector, which has allowed it to develop specific innovative solutions. Concerning blast chillers, it is fundamental to rely on sensors with high humidity tightness, to avoid that freezing cycles can affect their operation. In this case, the overmoulding technology is extremely efficacious to assure a good tightness of the probe that, moreover, can have various measuring points to identify automatically the “product core” temperature. It is also possible to integrate a heating element to facilitate the needle probe extraction from the frozen product.

Wireless temperature sensor with four measuring points to determine the product core cooking

Another issue is represented by industrial processes with tunnel blast chillers: in this case, the cable represents a hindrance to the probe use and for this specific application Italcoppie Sensori has implemented a wireless probe that frees the operator from the management of the cable itself. In cooking ovens, we find as burdensome operation conditions and, also in this case, the overmoulding with high-temperature polymers assures good reliability results. In this sector, the proposal by Italcoppie Sensori concerns also the measuring in chamber: the adoption of the mineral insulated cable allows achieving a better response speed and the possibility of reaching higher temperatures. The low-temperature vacuum cooking is increasingly diffused, the possibility of the “product core” temperature measuring exists also for it, through small-diameter needle probes that are introduced into the product without breaking vacuum.
Since they are products in contact with foods, the compliance with the manufacturing requisites imposed also for products in Food Contact Materials (FCM) is fundamental and for this reason products are provided with a declaration that certifies the full conformity with law requisites.