Technical Articles

Our quarterly magazine, Bread Lines, full of the latest news about members, classes and events, as well as technical articles and formulas.  The following technical article is an example of the information shared amongst our members.
 

Excerpt from Bread Lines
Vol. 19, No. 2 (Summer 2011)

Mixing and Techniques - Part I
By Didier Rosada

Many bakers consider mixing the most important step in baking. As seen before in a precedent article (Newsletter Volume 6 Issue 3), all steps of the baking process are connected and all of them are important. However, knowing that mixing is the first mandatory step to produce bread, a lot of attention must be given to this stage of the baking process.

Numerous functional and crucial dough characteristics, such as consistency, gluten development, and dough temperature will be determined during mixing. The goal of this two-part article will be to present in a very detailed way what is really happening when we mix dough. More precisely, the following topics will be covered:

• Steps to follow in order to successfullymix a dough to the dough
• What is happening during the mixing of the dough
  Precautions to take when mixing extra ingredients Into the dough
• Different mixing techniques -and their applications
• How to determine mixing time
• Factors affecting mixing time
• What technique to choose in a production environment
 

Read the entire article here.