Baking & Snack - November 2010 - 73

ARTISAN BAKING TECHNOLOGY

TO
THE
BY DAN MALOVANY
or Turano Baking Co., producing the next generation of artisan breads requires a bit of time travel. On
one hand, the company is going back further in the
annals of baking to uncover or rediscover the formulas and methods for creating classic breads and rolls,
and then reposition these timeless treasures as the latest
craze to consumers. At the same time, the Berwyn, ILbased baking company is searching for innovative ways
for automating the often painstaking, time-intensive
process of producing artisan breads from formulas that
often come with 75 to 82% hydration levels. For Joe
Turano, operations manager at Turano Baking, future
developments in technology can't come soon enough.
"We're going back in time looking at the techniques
that this country and Europe have used for many years,"
he noted. "The challenge is to come up with equipment
to handle these wet, highly fermented doughs in the
various levels of output that we need. That challenge also
involves producing everything from forming artisanal
baguettes and round boules to hoagies, sub rolls and
round rolls, whether they are hamburger buns or round
Kaiser-type rolls. The challenge is how to run these complex, high-level absorption doughs and run them well."
Over the years, Turano Baking has taken major strides
in automating what had been a labor-intensive process.
Eight years ago, after consulting with equipment companies from around the world, the baking company quilted
a patchwork of equipment that allowed it to mostly automate the production of its signature, 2-lb Pane Turano
bread. Today, the company has four of these low-stress
production lines. "We based the entire production line

on our signature product because we had confidence
that the product was going to continue to grow in
popularity as we improved the quality and produced it in
higher quantities," Mr. Turano said.
More recently, the company ventured into products such
as ciabatta bread and rolls and other items with absorption
rates and long fermentation times that make production
difficult to automate because of the wet, soft and sticky
doughs. As a result, Turano Baking built a small hand shop
in its Berwyn bakery that creates 500 to 1,000 of these specialty products a day for its primarily food service clientele
in the Chicago, IL, area. Many of the products are proofed
on canvas couches or on peel boards on racks, and many of
them require the old-fashioned, hands-on touch or scoring
of the product. To automate them is a delicate process. Even
unloading the doughs from the proofer to the oven can be a
tricky proposition, according to Mr. Turano.
PRICE OF FLEXIBILITY. When it comes to artisan bread
production, bakers look
for flexibility in handling
a wide variety of products.
That's because artisan bakers often produce a huge
number of different baked
foods compared to conventional baking companies,
▶ New technology allows bakers
to maintain unique product
characteristics that make a bread or
roll "artisan" in the first place.
RADEMAKER

November 2010 / BAKING & SNACK

Baking & Snack - November 2010

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