The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Baking in Mass Quantities

Verc0003's picture
Verc0003

Baking in Mass Quantities

hi

 

I am just getting into a commercial shared kitchen so that I can up my sourdough quantity. 

I want to mix 50 loaves at a time. The place has a Berkel 30 qt mixer and a 60 qt Globe mixer.

Which do you suggest? 

Also I have never used a mixer before. 

How do I use this?

 

How do I adjust my recipe for 50 loaves. 

I have found that when you increase your recipe something always goes wrong.

Right now my recipe for 2 loaves is :

1000 grams of flour

700 grams of water

225 grams of starter

20 gams of salt

 

In the mixer would i add everything at once or water and flour let rest then starter rest then salt?

 

HELP!!!

 

I find that there is no videos or books to help bakers that want to get bigger. Any video or book suggestions. 

 

Thank you so much!!=)))

pmccool's picture
pmccool

I suggest that you get a copy of Jeffrey Hamelman’s book titled Bread.  Most of the formulae in the book are scaled to produce 20-30 loaves per batch.  You can more easily scale up from those formulae than you can from a 2-loaf batch.  

The early chapters of the book have a wealth of information that will definitely help you as you develop your skills.  

Best of luck with your new endeavor. 

Paul

Verc0003's picture
Verc0003

Does he talk about how to use a mixer and recipes for 30 plus loaves?

Sugarowl's picture
Sugarowl

They should know how to operate their own mixer. If they can't show you then it's probably better to rent elsewhere. If they can't work it then it probably means they won't know (or care) when something is broken too. Commercial mixers can easily take your arm off, they are powerful. I used a commercial mixer when I worked at a restaurant. They have a strong motor, we used it to mix pizza dough and grind (yes, grind with an attachment blade) cooked sausages and shred giant blocks of cheese. Start on low and keep your fingers free while it's running.

Sugarowl's picture
Sugarowl

but on another thread one of the members owns this site: https://www.sourdoughhome.com/stretch-and-fold-for-a-farmers-market/. The link shows how he was making dough without a mixer for the farmer's market. Well, he uses a mixer for the preferments, but it's mostly stretch and folds in a bus tub.

Here's the Thread: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/11676/selling-farmer039s-markets

The user is MikeAvery, I'm not sure how to link his profile.

Flea's picture
Flea

Thanks for this post. Mike's link is great.

Verc0003's picture
Verc0003

Thank you so much

Steve Knight's picture
Steve Knight

Rounding up slightly, you're making 50 kg of dough.  It's probably easier because of mixer capacity to make two batches of 25 kg each.  A bus tub comfortably holds 10 kg.

Revise your formula to show the bakers' percentages, then simply to do multiplication to determine the amounts to scale.  Scale everything first, mix flour and water, autolyse for about half-an-hour, add starter and salt, mix on first speed for four or five minutes, check dough strength, mix on second speed if needed for another three to five minutes.  Pull a dough window. (It's always best to undermix rather than overmix).  Put the dough in tubs and fold one or two times every half-hour, depending on strength.  

 

joe_s's picture
joe_s

Hammelman book is an excellent recommendation ... Read up on baker's percentages and that will be your gateway to scaling recipes.   

Your lack of experience with mixers does not portend well success in the 50 loaves arena. You may want to rethink.  Making 50 lousy loaves of bread is a lot of work.  There is a huge difference making 1 loaf at home and 50 loaves in a commercial setting.

 

 

Dsr303's picture
Dsr303

If you can get a copy of The Village Baker by Joe Ortix he has large batch bread recipes in the back of the book

yozzause's picture
yozzause

That's a big step up from 2 to 50 and even bigger if you have no experience with machinery, really important to get things correct,  disappointing if you do a stuff up with 1 loaf  a disaster when you do it with 50. Perhaps you could get someone to assist or oversee whilst you find your feet.

When i was teaching apprentices dough making i had to impress upon them the magnitude of getting it wrong  600lbs of flour  and over 1000lbs of dough, can make for a very unhappy boss. 

The whole point with the bakers percentages formulas is that you can replicate the exact same dough whether its for 1 kg or 15 kg or right down to an exact amount of dough required.  

Your avatar gives no details of where you might be in this world so a bit hard to give any particular advice.

regards Derek