When it comes to minimizing waste, no area may be more important than sheeting and laminating. This is not only because of the obvious issue with side trim, but it’s also an area that creates opportunities for controlling the dough.
“It’s important to pay attention to process control and preventing doughs from bunching and stretching so there’s an even or low stress on the dough as it’s being sheeted,” Mr. Knott noted. “Anytime you see a dough sheet being pulled, you’re putting it in tension, or if it’s folding or lapping in front of the rollers, we have created some turbulence in the dough. Paying attention to this can reduce scrap.”
Rheon actually goes about sheeting in a more non-traditional way in an effort to reduce the stress on the dough. The company uses a stretcher, which has multiple rollers that run in an elliptical pattern. However, the rollers are not what reduce the thickness of the dough.
“The stretcher has three conveyor belts, and each one is moving faster than the one before,” Mr. Giacoio said. “It’s pulling the dough through, which reduces the deflection on the rollers because it’s not just using the rollers to reduce the thickness.”
This gradual reduction minimizes the deflection, ultimately reducing the trim, he said.
To avoid deflection, Rademaker designs equipment with standard 10-inch rollers and an option for 16-inch, which creates a sturdier design. And, Mr. Riggle noted, some bakers are actually using laminating to even out inconsistencies in dough.
“It doesn’t work for every dough, but creating layers via lamination could give structure to the product,” he said.
Laminating also can allow the operator to control the width of the dough sheet.
“It gives some flexibility versus a straight sheeting line,” Mr. Riggle suggested. “Let’s say you have a meter-wide sheeting line that’s straight; it’s always a meter. But if you add an element of lamination, you can be flexible with the width to where you can minimize the waste or recycled dough.”
That said, “We always caution that we don’t want to change the product for the sake of laminating,” Mr. Riggle noted.
