Baking & Snack - April 2024 - 68

TORTILLA & FLATBREAD PROCESSING
back loops to control speed and ensure smooth transfers.
" Our machinery keeps the dough as level as possible
to another, reducing
with the transition from one belt
stress, " Kollar explained.
The company also designs its dough band formers to
handle a wide range of doughs, from high-hydration, longfermentation
products to no-time, lower hydration doughs.
The need for gentle handling doesn't end at dough forming,
however. Sensitive doughs also require gentle sheeting.
This can be done by including extra sheeting stations so
reductions happen more gradually. For example, Moline
explained that a focaccia may not require very many sheeting
stations to get to the desired thickness, but by adding
extra sheeting stations, the dough isn't overworked as it's
reduced, and bakers can maintain the desired open grain
structure of the finished product.
" By doing less work in every sheeting station you can
avoid degassing your dough, " he said.
The type of sheeting roller can also impact the level of
Testing is critical to
ensure that automated
equipment helps flatbread
bakers meet or exceed
their current quality
standards.
AMF Tromp
waste safely without risk from weights and measures, and
easy to change forming nozzles make changeovers simpler
for your operators and faster for your sanitation crews. "
Often the line is designed with the most sensitive dough
in mind first as these require the most gentle of handling.
" Maintaining authentic product quality with high volume
automated operations is the biggest challenge, and
that quality is best managed with gentle handling by reducing
the force that is required to move these doughs through
the feed system to the nozzles, " Hagedorn said.
To do this at the dividing station, Handtmann has designed
its extruders with a short product path with less
product-to-stainless contact. This reduces friction on the
dough, which can damage the dough structure, especially
with specialized doughs that contain added protein or are
gluten-free.
Gluten-free, low-carb and high-protein doughs can all
be sticky. Bakers looking to produce this range of products
on one line need to be able to divide at that full spectrum.
McIsaac pointed out that the double-screw system on the
Vemag can be configured to handle stiff doughs while the
engineering team developed a series of deposit systems
to work with sticky doughs. Gluten-free also requires no
rounding process.
" We need to put the dough portion in the proper form
ready to be pressed, " he said.
The stickiness and lack of structure in gluten-free
doughs make them difficult to machine, Giacoio explained.
These characteristics require gentle handling so the dough
isn't overworked.
Dough transfers are another moment of stress. To manage
this, Rondo uses nose bars and gravity rollers with feed68
Baking & Snack April 2024 / www.bakingbusiness.com
damage done to the dough. AMF Tromp features a low
stress series of reduction rollers, with a multi- and cross
roller section, which Zimmerman noted contributes significantly
to creating the correct dough sheet in the gentlest
manner possible. There are many different types of sheeting
rollers that can meet different dough and finished product
needs.
" We never want to pull the dough as it's being reduced or
it can tear, " he said. " When the dough is pulled or stressed,
it can snap back, or shrink, after the die cutter or guillotine. "
Rondo combines two bottom rollers for its satellite roller
for gentle sheeting with a spiral-type cross roller for widening
the dough band without stress.
" We can also adjust the angle for the satellite roller in
relation to the bottom roller, the speed rollers, infeed and
outfeed belts with sensors, " Kollar said. " All these help us
to achieve the best possible sheeting for different types
of dough. "
As bakers look to design the sheeting portion of their
flatbread production lines, the types of rollers and number
of sheeting stations will be determined by several factors:
the desired finished weight and thickness but, first and
foremost, the type of dough.
" The product itself will dictate which kind of sheeting
stations we would recommend, and we prove that
out through testing, " Moline said. " You have to have
enough sheeting capacity to satisfy the product that needs
the most. "
Lamination is another step that can be added to create
unique internal crumb structure. Dockers can remove gas
bubbles for products like naan. Docking can also create a
more authentic, handmade look. Sheeting stations, lamination
and docking stations can all be modular equipment
that's added and removed from the line as needed.
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Baking & Snack - April 2024

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