Stress free dough sheeting process for batch systems

Abstract

A method of producing a stress free sheet of dough having uniform height and width can be economically and conveniently used with a batch dough system. Individual dough batches are deposited into a retention hopper from which equal volumetric dough portions are sectioned by a pair of oppositely rotating co-acting cutters. Each cutter includes a number of blades which cooperate with corresponding blades on the opposing cutter to section the dough into portions. The dough portions are deposited onto an inclined conveyor positioned below the hopper so that a leading end of each dough portion overlaps a trailing end of the previous dough portion. A photo-electric detection device ascertains the trailing end of the previous dough portion and signals the cutters to section the next successive dough portion. The overlapping dough portions are then formed into a dough sheet having uniform height and width by a pressing roller and a combination of side guide wedges and side pressing rollers, A second photo-electric detection device is positioned to ascertain an accumulation of dough entering the pressing rollers in order to prevent an excessive accumulation of dough on the upstream side of the pressing rollers, This invention economically produces a stress free sheet of dough with a well developed gluten network from discrete batches of dough.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.