A programmable control system for a cooking apparatus having a housing defining
a cooking chamber with one or more food transport conveyors traveling there-through
between opposing cooking elements. A food probe is provided for insertion into
cooked food items to ascertain the internal cooked temperature and a control program
to automatically call for the probing of temperature readings of food items on
a predefined schedule, and to record the temperature readings. The control program
also compensates for temperature degradation when the apparatus is under significant
cooking loads. The control program also compensates for the malfunction in the
cooking elements, wherein if one cooking element on one side of the conveyor path
malfunctions, a corresponding heating element on the opposite side of the conveyor
is deactivated and simultaneously the conveyor speed is slowed to compensate for
the reduction in heating to maintain balanced cooking of the food.