Baking & Snack - March 2018 - 90

PIZZA PROCESSING

When pizza goes gluten-free

Changing rotary cutters
on a sheeting line
enables flexibility for
multiple crust types.
Moline Machinery

Vemag divider to handle doughs ranging
from those that are less viscous, like glutenfree, to the stiffest doughs."
On a sheeting line, thin-crust pizzas often require
a watchful eye and gentle handling. "A thinner sheet has
a tendency to be more fragile and require more precision
in the sheeting process," Mr. Moline observed. "When it's
thinner, it's more susceptible to tearing." Moline sheeting
lines come equipped with automated sheet tension monitoring for the entire line.
"At each sheeting station, we can equip dough sheet tension monitoring that will make automated small adjustments to prevent the sheet from tearing. For instance, if
it sees the sheet stretching, it can speed up the system incrementally, starting with the sheeting rollers," Mr. Moline
explained.
For these low-moisture crusts, gentle handling also affects the dough consistency, according to Mr. Riggle, so
matching the machine to the dough type is vital. "Because
of the amount of force that builds up when sheeting down
to 1- or 2-millimeters thick, you can get a lot of deflection
on the rollers, and that can result in an inconsistent weight,
and it will only get exaggerated the thinner you go," he observed. What's more, handling the dough too aggressively
doesn't just hurt the product; it could damage the machine,
too. "These forces can cause premature bearing failure and
drive failure," Mr. Riggle said.
Likewise, for high-absorption doughs - the ones typically getting the fermentation time - the line must be designed to carefully handle a softer product. "You don't want
to spend all that time and money pre-fermenting something
for two or three hours only to run it through a production
line that will knock the gas out of it," Mr. Riggle cautioned.
"You want a low-stress front section and a sheeting line set

90 Baking & Snack March 2018 / www.bakingandsnack.com

Although the gluten-free trend has
leveled out, people diagnosed with
celiac disease and other legitimate
gluten intolerances will always
maintain demand for gluten-free
versions of products like pizza.
Not only because this allergen
requires dedicated processing space
also because of its sticky - almost
soupy - texture, gluten-free pizza
dough requires very specific processing parameters.
Rheon has experience processing particularly sticky doughs. "We
do have customers running glutenfree products," said John Giacoio,
vice-president, sales, Rheon. "When
it comes to sheeting [gluten-free
dough] to make a pizza, it's a lot
more challenging because it's so
sticky. But we are able to effectively
put down the dough sheet with our
dividers because it can handle those
stickier materials."
Rollers become tricky, and many
bakers use compression or multirollers or, as Rheon calls it, a stretcher. "It's a series of rolling pins doing
the reduction," Mr. Giacoio said.
At Tromp Group Americas, the
company considers gluten-free
processing with the design of its
forming equipment. "Tromp Group
can provide different dough band
forming where gluten-free dough
can be extruded while traditional
crusts are processed stress-free,"
said Jim Cummings, president. "It's
all about flexibility."
When processing a non-traditional
crust, especially one as challenging as
gluten-free, testing is vital. "We see
a wide variety of what each dough
can handle from a processing standpoint," said David Moline, vice-president, sales and marketing, Moline
Machinery, "so testing to ensure you
are investing in the proper type of
equipment, especially with non-traditional products, is very important."

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Baking & Snack - March 2018

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