Cooking oven

A method for cooking a food product which comprises:

• (a) placing said product on a continuously moving conveyor belt in a longitudinally extending cooking oven enclosing a cooking chamber and having a plurality of modules arranged in an end-to-end relationship along a longitudinal axis of said cooking oven;
• (b) circulating a hot cooking gas in said oven;
• (c) passing said hot cooking gas through a plurality of axially spaced transverse slots toward said conveyor belt and said food cooking thereon, so that a plurality of thin transverse gas streams contact said conveyor belt and said food cooking thereon;
• (d) recirculating spent cooking gas which has contacted said conveyor belt and said food;
• and
• (e) heating the spent recirculating cooking gas;
• said method further comprising establishing different conditions of temperature and humidity in different modules.

An apparatus for treating products, said apparatus comprising:

• (a) a longitudinally extending housing having an inlet end and an outlet end;
• (b) partition means forming inside said housing a treatment chamber, a supply plenum for a treatment medium on the first side of said chamber and a return plenum for spent treatment medium on a second side of said chamber;
• (c) a conveyor extending through said chamber from said inlet end to said outlet end for conveying of products thereon;
• (d) a plurality of treatment medium distributors positioned in axially spaced relationship to each other, each said distributor comprising at least one vertical plate wherein a vertical plate of one distributor and an vertical plate of an adjacent distributor are spaced close together to form therebetween a narrow slot for directing said treatment medium toward said conveyor and said product thereon;
• and
• (e) means for deflecting said treatment medium into said return plenum.

A method for treating a product which comprises:

• (a) placing said product on a continuously moving conveyor in a housing enclosing a housing chamber;
• (b) circulating a gas in said housing;
• (c) passing said gas through a plurality of axially spaced transverse slots toward said conveyor along the length of said conveyor and said product thereon, so that a plurality of thin transverse gas streams contact said conveyor and said product thereon;
• wherein said gas is passed laterally into a plenum and initially deflected away from said plurality of said slots and thereafter deflected to pass through the said plurality of said transverse slots toward said conveyor and said food thereon, said transverse slots being located between adjacent axially spaced distributors, and in which the resulting spent gas which has contacted said food is deflected transversely of said conveyor belt into a return plenum for spent gas
• (d) removing spent treating gas from the region of said conveyor and said product in a direction transverse to the direction of the conveyor belt;
• (e) recirculating spent gas which has contacted said product;
• and
• (f) treating the spent recirculating gas and recirculating said treated gas to pass through said slots.

A method for treating a product, comprising,

• (a) placing said product on a continuously moving conveyor in a housing enclosing a housing chamber;
• (b) circulating a gas in said housing;
• (c) passing said gas through a plurality of axially spaced transverse slots toward said conveyor along the length of said conveyor and said product thereon, so that a plurality of thin transverse gas streams contact said conveyor and said product cooking thereon;
• (d) removing spent treating gas from the region of said conveyor and said product in a direction transverse to the direction of the conveyor belt;
• (e) recirculating spent gas which has contacted said product;
• and
• (f) treating the spent recirculating gas and recirculating said treated gas to pass through said slots,
• wherein first and second portions of said gas are passed laterally into plenums and initially deflected away from said plurality of slots and thereafter deflected through a plurality of transverse slots positioned above and below said conveyor toward said conveyor and said product thereon, said transverse slots being located between adjacent axially spaced distributors positioned above and below said conveyor, and in which the resulting spent gas which has contacted said product is deflected transversely of said conveyor into a return plenum for spent cooking gas.