Baking & Snack - August 2006 - 68

PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY

equipment company to develop a moulding table," said the
development group manager for a US bakery equipment
manufacturer. "We have one in the testing phase now."
Doubles are a particularly vexing makeup problem.
One manufacturer described the operation of a "true"
doubles eliminator that rejects doubles before they get
into the sheeter head. Whether caused by upstream timing problems or by sticking to release mechanisms or
belts, doubles not only waste ingredients, they can potentially damage machine parts meant to handle the weight
and mass of a single dough ball. "The scraper design has
also been modified to help avoid any jams from a double
dough ball," the vice-president of moulder sales said.
"Scrapers act more as deflectors."
As the president observed, "The biggest challenge facing designers and engineers working to improve makeup
systems is incorporating the versatility the market is
looking for, yet combining it with ease of operation and
changeover." And the director of marketing and international sales agreed, "Changeover strategy is important to
today's multiple-shift operations."
One answer would be to seek systems that can handle both high-absorption, artisan-style doughs and
traditional breads without the need for mechanical
changeover, such as the one recently introduced by an
international bakery equipment manufacturer. "This
significantly increases available production time," said
the company's North American president. This dough
divider uses an independently driven discharge conveyor, allowing the bakery to direct products to the right
or left, again without mechanical changeover. "This
way, you can run traditional breads into a rounder and
a proofer from one side and feed an artisan moulder
from the other side," he said.
Then there's the intermediate proofer. At least one
manufacturer is of the opinion that these systems have

ᮡ This moulder employs three sets of rollers, plus a pre-sheeting roller assembly, to sheet doughs gradually and gently, thus better retaining gases and
allowing more curls at less cost.
THE PEERLESS GROUP

72 / BAKING & SNACK / August 2006

ᮡ Servo motors independently drive the knife, volume pistons and slide
mechanisms of this dough divider.
KAAK GROUP NORTH AMERICA

outlived their usefulness, especially for lines that must be
flexible in the products they make. "A popular alternative
is the resting conveyor system," said the vice-president of
moulder sales.
DOUGH FRIENDLY. In making these changes, equipment
manufacturers recognize that their methods must be
compatible with dough. "You have to be 'dough friendly'
and still maximize productivity and reduce maintenance
costs," said the director of marketing and international
sales. "Some of our biggest challenges can be summed
up as 'dough is dough.' Dough makeup is not just a mechanical process; it must deal with a living substance that
can vary greatly. Bakery equipment engineers must keep
pushing the envelope on innovation but realize the constraints that dough presents."
He explained further, "You can optimize a system to
transform a mass of dough into individual pieces, but it
also has to proof and bake at the highest quality possible.
Dough makeup systems can't alter the dough's condition."
An increasingly popular design approach is to make
the machines simpler. "Our company has redesigned
most of our makeup machines in the past five years to
drastically reduce the overall part count in them," said
the vice-president of parts and services. "The result is
fewer parts, easier operation, less surface area to clean,
cheaper maintenance and also higher speeds."
Attention is also being paid to the transfer points in
the makeup process and the conveyors that support the
activity. "Doubles are created at the intermediate proofer
loader and at transfer points when incorrect belt speeds
are chosen," the vice-president of moulder sales observed.
"Serious consideration should be given to dough spacers
or metering conveyors."
Consider the matter of speed, he suggested. "If a baker

Baking & Snack - August 2006

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