The art of processing soft dough
Michael Gier, Manager of the FRITSCH World of Bakery, explains how the FRITSCH bread lines handle soft doughs in a gentle manner
Could you please give us a brief overview of FRITSCH as a company and the range of products and services?
FRITSCH is located in Germany and offers machines for artisan bakers and industrial bakeries to produce first-class baked goods. Since 2019, FRITSCH has been part of the MULTIVAC Group, the world’s leading manufacturer of integrated packaging solutions. FRITSCH is therefore part of a global sales and service network with over 80 locations and supports customers worldwide around the clock.
As one of the leading manufacturers of bakery machines, our focus is not only on developing flexible and compact lines, but above all on our enthusiasm for the baked product. Our aim is to supply our customers with the highest quality, both in the form of reliable lines and high-quality baked products. In our technology centre, the FRITSCH World of Bakery, customers have the perfect set-up on 4,600 square metres to test our lines and to experience our passion for dough.
What specific solutions do you offer your customers for processing soft bread dough?
Depending on the customers’ requirements in terms of performance and the degree of automation, we offer two different solutions in the bread segment which has been specially developed to process soft doughs. With a capacity of up to 1.8 tons of dough per hour, the compact PROGRESSA bread allows mid-sized retail bakers to produce a large variety of bread products of high quality and with extreme precision in weight. This is ensured by a guillotine with two precise weighing units.
The industrial line IMPRESSA bread is characterised by its high output and extremely gentle handling of the dough. The FRITSCH SoftProcessing technology ensures gentle treatment of the dough from the very beginning to the very end of the entire process. The IMPRESSA bread is modular and flexible in structure, which means it can be adapted precisely to the respective customer’s requirements.
Where do you see the main challenges in processing soft bread doughs?
The trend towards breads made from soft doughs with long pre-proofing times of up to 24 hours, and often a high rye content, poses major production challenges. To be able to produce as many different products as possible at consistently high quality, a production line simply has to be uncomplicated to retool, easy to clean, and ready to expand if necessary. For many lines, processing soft doughs requires adding greater amounts of separating agents like oil, for example, to be able to make the dough sheet as true to weight and shape as possible. But increasing the amount of oil has a negative impact on the final product. Also, the effort of cleaning increases, and so do the downtime when changing products.
Handling dough the right way is not an easy task. Each dough has its very own set of rules, and so producing the finest baked goods at consistently high quality is an art in itself. That is why we at FRITSCH place great value on processing the dough as gently as possible, in order to maintain its sensitive structure.
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