Baking & Snack - May 2017 - 82

MIXERS

stand-alone unit that can be moved to serve different
mixers or multiple production lines. "The final, legacy
mixer is used just to homogenize minors and micros
with the fully hydrated flour," he explained. "The result
is a mix time in the legacy mixer of only 5 minutes versus 12 to 15 minutes for a traditional mixing process."
Meanwhile, Bühler's JetMix system for pre-hydration of white and whole wheat flours creates a homogenous pre-dough that also reduces kneading time up to
30% in various tests, noted John Hunter, sales account
manager, bakery and ingredient handling, Bühler.
The patented Bühler system features a 360° spray
nozzle arrangement that aims to hydrate individual
particles of flour. "JetMix can be installed directly

Ensure fermentation stays on track
In Old World artisan bakeries using spiral mixers, resting
doughs and keeping track of extended fermentation times for
sponges can be a labor-intensive process prone to human
error. Why not adopt another European system - the railroad
- to automate it and make sure that everything runs on time.
Topos Mondial Corp., for instance, uses a carousel-type station where the bowls line up on two parallel tracks for proper
fermentation under temperature- and humidity-controlled
conditions. On the system, informally called "railroad stationing," a robotic "engine" places and removes the bowls, based
on the required fermentation time, according to Damian
Morabito, president and CEO.
The number and size of bowls on each track determines
the length of fermentation. "You take the number of bowls
that you use each hour and simply multiply it by the number
of hours you want to ferment the sponges," Mr. Morabito
explained. "You may need eight, 12 or 20 bowls or more.
Automating provides more consistent floor time and a more
consistent product."
After fermentation, the bowls typically travel up a bowl
hoist that feeds the chunker or divider. The system can even
put bowls through with an automatic bowl washer before
returning them back to the mixing department.
Gostol employs a circular design for mixing and dough
handling, according to Tanja Coha, marketing coordinator. It
locates mixers in the center, with the sponge or dough bowls
placed on shelves, up to four levels, along the circumference of
the operation. A robot device stacks, picks and places bowls for
pre-selected time- and temperature-controlled fermentation.
"When the planned fermentation of dough in a specific
bowl ends, the bowl is taken from the shelf and moved to a
transport route that discharges the dough from the bowl into
the hopper or other machine next in line," Ms. Coha said. She
added that the system can reduce floor space needs up to
45% compared with conventional bowl handling.

82 Baking & Snack May 2017 / www.bakingandsnack.com

ahead of the mixer for both batch and continuous
dough mixers," Mr. Hunter said. "In addition, the
JetMix can be integrated with holding tanks for both
pre-hydration systems feeding multiple lines and prefermentation systems."
Zeppelin System's DymoMix, which is short for
Dynamic Moistening Mixer, pre-hydrates multiple ingredients at the same time. "Most of our clients prefer
to pre-hydrate all dry ingredients including flour and
also minor ingredients to eliminate the blending process in the mixer and provide a dust-free environment,"
Mr. Marquardt said. "This also cuts the high-speed
mixing time, which results in lower dough temperatures, creates an instantaneous biochemical process,
increases the hydration of approximately 3 to 5%, and
boosts line capacity by approximately one to 1.5 batches per hour."
The continuous DymoMix uses centrifugal force to
hydrate up to 8,800 lb dry ingredients per hour with
a hydration range of 10 to 150%. "You can call it controlled mechanical pre-hydration," Mr. Marquardt
said. "We can add any water-soluble ingredients such
cream yeast, sponges, sourdoughs, vinegar, high-fructose corn syrup, liquid sugars and more. You can also
hydrate powdered sugar with oils or liquid butters, for
example in applications such as for the confectionary
industry."
Mr. Warren confirmed the new hydrators can reduce
the amount of energy and heat during the continuous
mixing process by 30% or up to 50% in some batch
mixing applications.
"Hydrator developers have used different principles
to achieve their goal of instant, high-hydration levels,"
he pointed out. "While these hydrators work differently, it is correct to say that the most recent designs
are all focused on bringing liquids and dries together
in a more efficient method to allow the dries to connect with the liquids more efficiently. This can be done
multiple ways."
Reading's Exact Mixing Hydrobond technology uses a
spray of fine droplets of water to hydrate a stream of individual dry particles, such as flour, prior to continuous
mixing. "We're spraying in water in droplets, one piece
at a time, making hydration as small as possible - piece
by piece," Mr. Warren said.
When used with a continuous mixer, Hydrobond
speeds up the continuous process allowing the use of a
smaller mixer to produce the same volume of finished
dough as a larger system, which results in a smaller
footprint, lower equipment investment and reduced
energy costs. It can also be used with a pre-hydration
system to mix particles of flour, minors and water directly into a brew holding tank.

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