Baking & Snack - December 2004 - 67

PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY

ᮡ Controlling the placement of the seam ±15° from exact bottom, a new
moulder assures correct placement in pans of every loaf.
KAAK GROUP NORTH AMERICA

The answer recommended by the vice-president of a
European bakery equipment manufacturer with offices in
the US is a "totalizing" weighing system. On this company's
system, a load cell is located near the guillotine under the belt
carrying the dough strand. "As the conveyor travels over the
load cell, the weight is accumulated," he explained. "When
the total reaches a pre-set limit, the system signals the cutter,
which acts after a pre-set delay." Because the belt includes a
spliced seam, the system also monitors for the position of the
seam and compensates for that in the accumulated total.
"Weighing is critical," the vice-president stated. "Scrap,
however, is another matter. On these systems, you always
have a bit of side scrap. As a baker, you have to look at the
scrap loss as a trade-off for the elimination of the cost of
divider oil and other additives."
The accuracy of piece weights can also be affected
by the depth of the dough sheet itself. It is common for
sheeted yeast-raised dough to be slightly higher in the
middle than at the two sides. "This is caused by roller
deflection," explained the East Coast-based president.
"When making ciabatta, for example, the best you'll get
is ±3% on weight unless you use a checkweighing system
because of the natural distribution of air bubbles," he said.
Besides feedback checkweighers, another approach
is to stiffen the roller by opting for solid construction.
His company, however, has applied for a patent on a new
idea: a slightly off-kilter top roller.
"In this design, the roller shafts are not parallel: The top
roller is slightly off-axis with the bottom roller," he said.
The top roller's center line is rotated a few degrees in the
horizontal plane. This minimizes the roller gap at the center of the roll stand, yet the clearance, or gap,
between the rollers increases toward
the outer edges. This design, he
said, naturally works the center of the dough sheet more
than the ends and achieves
a uniform depth across
the full sheet.

70 / BAKING & SNACK / December 2004

LESS STRETCH, MORE SHAPE. Sheeted dough can be
cut to length, which means it requires less stretching than
conventional round dough balls, especially in stringline
systems for making baguettes. As the president of a bakery equipment manufacturer noted, "On a traditional
stringline, you make a ball of dough, rest it, mould it, rest
it some more, then stretch it out to reach finished length.
With a sheeting system, you can now make a piece of
dough that's the right length from the start." The result
is that makeup processes take up less space in the plant
while throughput rises for most products.
Under these conditions, the moulding tables are simpler in design. Older designs were deliberately bowed
upward in the middle. "Combined with the pressure
boards above, this design helped force the round dough
ball outward to the sides of the table to achieve a standard
height across the whole loaf," he said. "But when you have
the loaf at proper length first, you can mould with a completely flat table and belts."
Another way to mould sheeted bread is with torpedo
curling rolls such as those used on pastry lines making
cinnamon rolls. The dough is sheeted out into a wide
band and then cut into strips. When the strips encounter
the torpedo rolls, they curl up and over. A light spray of
water is used to help the dough adhere. Additionally, the
dough can be sprinkled prior to curling with cinnamon
or other swirl ingredients. The roll is cut to length, and
the loaf-shaped pieces drop into pans or onto peels.
Another manufacturer developed an oscillating
moulding system for preparation of rolls. The dough
is sheeted and cut into narrow strips. A plow folds the
dough before it is cut into individual portions, resembling rough cubes. A timing conveyor spaces out the cut
pieces to fit the configuration of the oscillating section, a
bank of multiple cups that rotate in the horizontal plane
while traveling along with the belt. The result are spherical dough balls.
SIMPLE, SANITARY. Aware of today's increasing attention to sanitation, equipment manufacturers have also
concentrated on engineering systems to be simpler to
use and easier

Baking & Snack - December 2004

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