Baking & Snack - July 2008 - 95

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ARTISAN PROCESSING

they are looking to produce significant amounts of products
in shorter times. "Now that
artisan bread products have
become more available and
accepted you are seeing large,
wholesale bakeries producing
and selling their versions of artisan breads," he said.
Mr. Munsch noted, "Artisan
bread lines are, by definition,
very flexible lines, as it is a lot
easier to apply seeds or flour
on the products, which are produced on flat boards."
Artisan processors require
equipment with gentle processing of the dough to maintain the
open cell structure from long
bulk ferments prior to makeup,
Mr. Riggle pointed out. Processors can choose to start
the makeup process with either a sheeter or a divider.
DOUGH DIVISION. Several equipment companies
have recently introduced new dividing equipment that
places less stress on the dough. Mecatherm introduced
the TraDivider, which it exhibited at Europain 2008 in
Paris, France. The TraDivider is specifically designed
to divide artisan-type dough, including very highly
hydrated dough and dough with up to 3 hours of floor
time prior to dividing, according to Mr. Munsch. "The
dough is divided very gently with a natural flowing
and filling of the dividing chamber, without applying any pressure on the dough to avoid destroying the
structure of the product developed during the resting
in bowls," he said. "We are not squeezing the dough
by compressing it. This makes it possible to divide hydrated dough without the dough becoming sticky."
The TraDivider precisely cuts dough with the regularity approaching a conventional dough divider, and
it dramatically reduces the dough trim that may be
associated with a sheeting line. The machine is built
with an all-stainless steel frame and is mounted on
legs, making it simple and easy to clean.
The biggest difference between a regular pan bread
line and one designed for artisan breads, according to
Magnus Soeson, export sales manager at Sweden-based
Glimek Baking System, is that the equipment must be
able to handle sticky dough in a gentle way. "To be able to
handle very sticky doughs, we use oil in the dividing and
rounding process," he said. "In the long molding unit, we
also use flour dusting to enable us to handle the doughs
gently. The amount of oil and flour is fully adjustable so
you can get the right amount for every occasion."
Adamatic Corp., a division of the Belshaw-Adamatic
BAKING & SNACK / July 2008

ᮢ Minimizing scrap and trim is an important feature to many artisan processors
because they cannot or do not want to
rework trim and waste into the mix.
RADEMAKER USA

Bakery Group, Auburn, WA, integrates Glimek equipment into its lines when artisan-style breads are specified. Glimek has adapted its equipment to be able to
handle high water content dough in variety of ways,
according to Mr. Soeson. To take advantage of the good
weight accuracy offered by its SD-180 divider, the supplier decided to adopt this to artisan-style bread by
making several changes, including a nonstick-coated
hopper, a new belt with better release characteristics
and adding a transfer roller on the outfeed conveyor.
The German-built Werner & Pfleiderer Mulitmatic
bun divider and rounder, which is available in the US
from Gemini, has recently been upgraded to reduce
dough compression and, therefore, reduce punishment, according to Mr. Rosenberg.
The Benier Dough Master divider available from Kaak
Group North America, Lithia Springs, GA, also reduces
dough stress and can handle doughs with absorption
rates ranging from 45 to 90%. "The divider is extremely
gentle, thus bakers can get very open structures on something besides sheeting lines," said Bob Marraccini, vicepresident of sales and marketing, Kaak Group North
America. "A dough's absorption rate determines whether
it can run on a sheeting line. We can run doughs with 6 to
10% higher absorption than sheeting lines."
This new ram-and-sheer divider is servo driven,
thus the baker can control all of its functions independently, he said. In addition to imposing less stress
on its artisan doughs, the Dough Master is highly accurate and available with a smart checkweigher so processors can determine how much dough is fed into the
division box. Mr. Marraccini noted that the divider is
able to achieve accuracies within a 5- or 6-g deviation
on a 1-lb loaf made with high-absorption dough.
Scaling accuracy is extremely important to proces-

Baking & Snack - July 2008

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