April 18, 2024 - 10:49am
Material simulating a loaf load
Not sure what heading to post this under, but I guess it's geeky enuf to put here. :)
I'm going to be doing a series of experiments in which I'll be monitoring pan temperatures over the bake cycle. And doing so numerous times.
Rather than baking actual loaves, it would be nice to have a standardized material in the pan that:
a) is consistent/repeatable
b) resembles the volume and mass of a typical loaf
c) can take the heat (say 400ºF)
d) and can be re-used
I've used rice in the past but, for a given weight, its volume is too small.
Any ideas?
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comes to mind....
Yippee
Will it hold up in the heat?
Maybe silicone pellets?
Very dry dirt?
Edit: Sand.
A wet sponge? Not sure which kind of sponges handle what temperatures, but I think you need to look at the evaporation of moisture and the presence/creation of air pockets within the mass.
It would also probably be a good idea to validate your model system by making the same measurements on actual loaves to see if you can correlate the results. Unless this is going to be a very long process of experiments, it might take longer to find and validate a model than to just do the experiments with the actual loaves.
It hits most of your criteria. The biggest potential drawback I see is that the water temperature will never exceed 212F but that's also true of bread dough, usually.
Paul
With the disclaimer that I know nothing,
I'll suggest simply wetting a loaf of bread. You lose about 10% of weight to evaporation when baking so add 10% water to a sacrificial loaf and bake it again.
That sounds like a very good idea. Do you think gaps around the twice or thrice baked loaf would matter? It might not fit the pan perfectly, I dunno.
I think solid objects of any size (sponge, bread loaf, etc.) wouldn't conform well enough to the shape of various pans,
@Moe: Cheap and readily available! I'm thinking dirt would weigh even more than the rice, so by itself, volume wouldn't be sufficient. But maybe a good filler for another material...
@paul: Water would present another variable, boiling off/evaporating at a temp-dependent rate. But maybe it could be part of a mix...
@fred: I don't think I need to simulate the effect of air pockets in bread for this. AFAIK, most sponges are cellulose. Model validity: I'm thinking if the mass and volume are in the right ballpark, that should be close enough.
A couple crafts stores in town have silicone beads. I'm going to check them out. They're probably too light by themselves but mixed with dirt or rice, maybe good...
How about vermiculite or perlite mixed with rice? Our low-tech lab oven thermometers were mounted in a small bottle filled with vermiculite as a heat sink. Later models had fine glass beads instead of vermiculite.
Best idea yet! It'll take much higher than 400F too. I have some 1" vermiculite slabs (used in woodstoves) but I'll see if it's available loose locally... would be a shame to grind them up
I got some silicone beads, not nearly enuf for a whole loaf but they can be part of the mix.
Try looking for it at a garden center. It's often used in potting mix but also sold separately. I bought a big bag of it; didn't weigh much, though.
It's light weight is a good thing. Really the perfect material for this! Thanks!
Just did my first round of monitoring baking pan temps using the vermiculite + rice as a test load, and it works great! Thanks for the suggestion!