Baking & Snack - August 2015 - 59

Unbaked frozen croissants tumble from a piece counter into bags before they
are casepacked.
extruder, which creates a dough sheet with 17-mm
thickness initially. The sheet passes through side rollers
that push the dough together before it enters a 12-roller
quick reducer station, cross-roller and flour dusting systems to make a thin, 600-mm wide sheet. Scrap from the
trimmers is conveyed back to the mixing area for incorporation into future doughs.
After additional flour dusting, a Rademaker fat pump
adds exact amounts of butter. Folding belts cause the
dough to enclose the butter, and the sheet enters a second reducer station to create a consistent, sealed sheet.

Laying it on
During the next part of the process, the sheet enters a
lapping laminator where a retractable conveyor folds
the sheet to create multiple layers. Depending on the
product, the number of total layers ranges from 18
to 24. After the initial lamination, the sheet travels
through a third reducer station before riding along a
resting belt for approximately 8 minutes. Afterward,
the dough sheet is guided to a cut-sheet laminator
where a guillotine slices the sheet into large squares
and stacks them.
A multi-roller pressure system then reduces the
stack to create a continuous, thin sheet, which glides
to an overhead cooler. There, the sheet cascades down
a Rademaker cooling and resting system, reducing in
temperature from 15° to 4°C. That process firms up the
butter and prevents it from melting as well as provides
the dough time to rest and relax. In some cases, Bridor
may change the temperature of the dough at this stage
to manipulate the flavor profile of the final product. In
other cases, the dough may cascade down three or five
tiers, depending on the item's specifications.
After going through a reduction station, cross-roller
and three gauging stations to establish the final thickness of the sheet, a rotary cutter creates a row of seven
individual triangular pieces that travel along diverging or finger conveyors that align them before entering the croissant roller. The rolled pieces pass through
a turning device that rotates them 90° as they march
toward the JBT Food Tech/Frigoscandia dual-spiral
proofer. Pre-proofed products travel in that system for
up to two hours - one hour on each spiral. During
Baking & Snack's visit, however, Bridor was running
raw frozen croissants so the pieces bypassed this stage
of the process.
After conveying through a JBT spiral freezer,
the dough pieces enter a dedicated De La Ballina
packaging system that counts, bags and casepacks the
frozen products.

Seeking out innovation at iba
As industrial director at Bridor, Daniel
Le Grand oversees the company's two
wholesale bakeries in France. At iba 2015,
to be held Sept. 12-17 in Munich, he will
be not only searching for the latest generation in technology but also visiting with
equipment suppliers to determine what
they can develop specifically for Bridor.
Typically, he said, Bridor's operations
team attends such trade shows to scout
out new technology that can be customized to the company's specifications.
"We've seen increases in line speeds
and improvement in accuracy over the
years," Mr. Le Grand said. "The ability of
technology to produce a wider variety
of products has improved as well. We
need this flexibility because products are
changing as people's tastes continue to
change across the world."
For the latest information on iba, visit
www.iba.de/en.

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Baking & Snack - August 2015

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