September 18, 2021 - 2:29pm
Stretch & Fold Practices for larger batches.
I'm curios how commercial bakers handle stretch and folds in larger batches. I own a coffee shop and we are moving form 10kilo sourdough bagel batches to 30. I'm assuming I just put into multiple proofing boxes and stretched from there but I wasn't sure if there were any other common methods fro larger batches.
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Check out videos from the Proof bakery on youtube, nice insight into the backstage of a commercial bakery.
Yea been watching their videos for sure. He stretches in boxes which seems relatively simple.
I would suggest that, if only for the purpose of workplace health and safety, dividing the batch into portions no larger than 10kg would be sensible.
Besides that, if you have a good schedule and suitable containers for 10kg batches, it's probably easier to do the same thig x 3, rather than deal with the differences that a larger batch might bring (e.g. it will take longer to cool and longer to come to room temp and your folding technique would presumaby have to change which may not develop the dough in the same way).
It will also scale up. Presumably you have a mixer capable of 30kg of dough that also works fine with 10kg (as that's what you were doing before). That being the case, you can relatively easily go from 30kg to 40kg or back down to 20kg without having to really change anything - one box, two boxes, three boxes, etc . . .
In other words - and approaching this only practically - I would think that the up sides of doing it in 10kg boxes would outweigh any missed efficiencies that might be found in doing it as a larger single bulk.
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Good advise and thank you. Certainly in the proofing boxes they will need to be smaller but I’m uncertain if I want to mix smaller batches. Currently we are doing two mixes per batch so this could get pretty intensive. That being said you’re right my 30qt mixer will certainly not handle that batch!