Baking & Snack - March 2018 - 100

MIXING

bonds, creating the cell structure. Mixers incorporate air
into batters to achieve specific gravity, which also contributes to structure. When operators control the amount of
air being incorporated into the dough, they exercise control over the cell structure that forms in a bread dough or
the specific gravity of a cake batter.
"If you just use the atmosphere, the cells are going
to be whatever they are going to be during the mixing
process," Mr. Bartsch said. "Your cell structures tend to
be more uniform when you've regulated the air in the
mixer or take it out."
In the case of VMI's new Continuum mixing system,
dough for soft breads, buns and crackers is mixed in a
vacuum. This adds a parameter that operators can control - in addition to ingredient flow, temperature and
energy - and improves the rheological properties of the
dough and consistency. According to VMI, dough plasticity increases, fermentation is faster and the cell distribution in the crumb is more homogenous.
Bühler's ContiMix provides pressure and vacuum
zones which has an impact on dough characteristics and
contributes to the mixer's ability to consistently deliver a
fresh dough band with identical characteristics.
In continuous mixing systems for batter, injecting air
into batter gives bakers final control over the specific
gravity of the product. "Giving operators the ability to
tell the mixer how much air they want to inject, the net
result is going to be a very accurate final specific gravity
and very repeatable weights," Mr. Peck said. "It will help
with final weight controls. They won't be giving away
product, making it too heavy or light."
Getting the specific gravity right at the start of production helps improve how the product will run downstream. "If the initial specific gravity is consistent, it's going to improve everything down the line," Mr. Peck said.
With E.T. Oakes' automatic controls, controlling the
injection of air into the batter is as easy as pushing a button. Operators can choose recipes through HMIs with
the associated parameters pre-programmed. "They don't
have to know how much air to add in," Mr. Peck explained. "It's very easy for operators to just choose recipes and check their final cup weights accordingly."
Product consistency and production efficiency go
hand-in-hand. The more uniform the dough or batter,
the smoother it will run on equipment downstream.
"The key to increasing consistency and efficiency in any
mixing system is to maintain tight control on ingredient
metering and dough processing," Mr. Cross said.
With tight control over ingredient flow, dough temperature and atmosphere, bakers can get the most
from their continuous mixing systems and see the
payoff in uniform product, weight control and a more
efficient process.

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

Sanitation to keep things moving
A conversation about mixing and process
efficiency is not complete without discussing improved sanitation. It's a critical part
of any bakery's process, but it does result in
downtime, which is lost time and money for
a bakery. Making sanitation easier, quicker
and more effective is important to any
baker. "The benefits of consistent dough can
quickly erode if the equipment doesn't have
a robust design that requires little maintenance or wasn't designed with good CIP and
quick changeovers in mind," said Joe Cross,
process manager, Zeppelin Systems USA.
VMI North America has prioritized improving the cleanability of its mixing systems.
"By improving the cleanability, we want to
reduce the amount of sanitation time and
get production back up and running," said
Terry Bartsch, president and CEO, VMI North
America. "The changeover time is reduced
so bakers can bring another product online
quicker." VMI's Continuum mixing system
features a self-emptying CIP system to
achieve these goals.
To streamline its sanitation process and
minimize costs, E.T. Oakes offers a dualpurpose product pump that can be used not
only for the product metering, but also for
the CIP systems having the correct flowrate/
velocity for cleaning-in-place. "Before, you
had to have two pumps to accomplish this,
but now you can do it with one," said Bob
Peck, vice-president, engineering, E.T. Oakes.
"This has made the process piping much
simpler and with less cost in the long run."
Above: Easy-to-clean equipment helps keep production moving efficiently.
E.T. Oakes

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Baking & Snack - March 2018

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