Pastry Dough Hardness

Situation

Large scale commercial bakery identified a requirement to measure dough hardness as a predictor to process performance in rotary moulder and plug former.

Dough texture and firmness was identified as critical characteristic to processing performance. If dough were too soft it would stick to mould and plug former. If too hard it would not fill mould & crack on crimping.

Method

Three replicate penetration tests on sample taken from dough mixer.
Dough was pressed into standard sized container to maximise reproducibility.

• Identified process & ingredient variables, which affect dough texture
• Upper and lower limits for variables established
• Troubleshooting check list formed to rectify out of spec dough
• Quality standards set for good and bad dough

Results

• Reduced downtime
• Reduced product wastage due to out of spec dough reaching production line