Baking Contrast quantifies lightness of baked crust, crumb and similar applications. Monitoring lot differences in fresh bread and cookies is a typical application but BCU can be applied to monitor browning in any baked product.
BC or BCU – Baking Contrast Units is defined as:
BCU = log2 (Y/2.5)
where Y = CIE Tristimulus Y brightness value for D65/10 illuminant/observer conditions.
The BCU range will be from 0.00 (darkest) – 5.25 (lightest) BCU.
A difference of 0.1 BCU units is estimated to be a visual difference in the product.
Typical acceptable differences are larger than 0.1 and are user-defined for a given baked product.
Implementation of BCU in HunterLab Instruments
The portable MiniScan EZ 45/0 LAV and the mini-bench ColorFlex EZ 45/0 LAV are typically used for baking applications with firmware modification to add BCU as a color scale.
- CMR-3115 BCU-Baking Contrast Units for MiniScan EZ 45/0 LAV
- CMR-3116 BCU-Baking Contrast for ColorFlex EZ 45/0 LAV
Provides modified firmware to include the BCU-Baking Contrast Units scale D65/10 used in measuring baked crust, crumb and similar applications.