When it comes to flatbread and tortilla processing, a sheeting line serves as the Swiss army knife of production. It can have many different components that can be configured and expanded to create an incredibly flexible line. Flexibility does come with some trade-offs and sometimes compromises must be made in the name of floorspace and volume, but bakers can piece together a production line that will meet the processing needs of a variety of flatbreads. 

“A sheeting line can be very diverse because you can use it for flatbreads, tortillas, pizza, pastry, anything that needs a thin sheet of dough,” said Rich Wall, executive general manager, Sottoriva America. 

To maintain quality while designing a flexible line, bakers need to consider equipment that can handle doughs of varying hydrations. 

“Since the most appropriate divider design for these products can be affected by the moisture and protein content of the dough, the equipment selected needs to handle the range of doughs,” said Ken Hagedorn, vice president, bakery sector, Handtmann. “Beyond that, gentle handling with low temperature rise helps with quality and consistency, reliably precise gram-accurate dividing lets you reduce 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. John McIsaac, vice president of strategic business development, Reiser, 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, explained John Giacoio, vice president of sales, Rheon USA. 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 feedback loops to control speed and ensure smooth transfers. 

“Our machinery keeps the dough as level as possible with the transition from one belt to another, reducing stress,” explained David Kollar, senior regional sales manager, Rondo. 

The company also designs its dough band formers to handle a wide range of doughs, from high-hydration, long-fermentation 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, David Moline, president of Moline Machinery, 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 damage done to the dough. AMF Tromp features a low stress series of reduction rollers, with a multi- and cross roller section, which Bill Zimmerman, regional account manager, AMF Bakery Systems, 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. 

“Modular equipment gives bakers options in their production line,” said Nick Magistrelli, vice president of sales, Rademaker USA. 

After the dough sheet is the appropriate width and thickness, it can be proofed before being cut into the appropriate shape for the product being made. Cutting be done by using a die cutter or a guillotine.

“A die cutter is a roller with different shapes on it that cuts the shape out of the dough sheet,” Zimmerman explained. “Scrap and trim then get conveyed back to the dough extruder so there’s minimal waste.” 

Moving from a guillotine to a die or rotary cutter can happen instantaneously, Moline said, as it’s simply a matter of enabling and disabling different machines on the line. Rotary or die cutters can come in a variety of shapes and changing the shape or size of the finished product is as simple as changing out the cutter.

“The makeup section is where it gets fun because there is so much you can do,” Moline said. “Belt-driven rotary cutting, it is so easy to switch out the cutter. For stickier doughs you might need power rotary cutting. For a rectangular shape you’ll want to look at a servo-driven guillotine. We offer an ultrasonic guillotine for high-hydration sticky doughs. You have to look at the whole array of product and the versatility that you need and the fast changeovers you need for makeup.”  

This article is an excerpt from the April 2024 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Tortilla & Flatbread Processing, click here.