How do bakeries manage hundreds a thousand or so of loaves of bread from a big batch of dough (say 400-700 lbs)?
I know a lot of the REALLY big bakeries are fully automated but I'm talking the usual local shop. Proofing seems like it'd be an issue if yeast and temperatures aren't carefully managed. What are the usual methods of managing proofing? I'd assume keeping the water cold when mixing and not using too much yeast help. Holding cabinets (refrigerated). But is there an usual or semi standard practice for dough management?
Not quite on target, but here's a video showing a lone Japanese baker who does all the work by hand, day after day. It's worth watching if you can free up the time (41 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOK3nS4t7_Y
I don't have any experience with "usual local shop" operations (I do home baking and work at a really big bakery), but I don't see any reason why anyone would mix up 400-700lbs of dough without some automation. Are you talking about a small industrial bakery/commissary? Because if we're talking about a retail bakery, I could see going through that much dough in the whole day, but not per batch.
When i was dough maker the two arm mixers used had bowls bowls that held 4 bags of flour that's 600lbs and once water and other ingredients went in the weight would be over 1,000 lbs the temperature was critical as these were 4 hour doughs that had to be ready one after the other. mix time was twenty minutes and there were two mixers being used at the same time. The dough room wasn't air conditioned so allowance was made for the prevailing weather on a daily basis. the doughs as they came off the mixer were wheeled away and an extension ring placed on the bowl and a canvas cap over the top of that. i twas an impressive sight to see twenty or so bowls in a line all fermenting away and at various stages. the doughs were tipped into hoppers to the waiting bakers on the ground floor below the dough room. The divided and scaled dough pieces (mechanical) went through a rounder and into a traveling proofer which gave some recovery before going through the moulder machine and into tins either into another over head traveling proover or into racks holding the tins these would be rolled in to a proover that had steam and warmth for the final rise before going to the oven.
Nice! Interesting to hear. It sounds like the shop had to be aware enough of proofing to go by feel in that case. But at the same time, there was a proofer which likely added some regularity to things.
So I used to work in a local Italian bakery. Unfortunately, I worked mostly in the front of the shop making sandwiches and cleaning, and I was not privy to any of the dough-making. I was also not terribly interested in bread-making at the time, so I never asked any questions or paid much attention to the process. Working there aggravated my carpal tunnel and eczema to an unbearable extent, too, so I was only there a few months.
Backstory aside, we had a walk-in steam room where we would put shaped dough from a refrigerator or freezer at the end of the day, around 4-7pm. There were what looked like heating coils on the ceiling. I didn't go back to the shop until 10-11am the next day, and everything had already been baked many hours earlier, so I don't know when they turned on the steam or heat or whatever in the steam room, or when they baked the bread after that. How the dough was handled before shaping and refrigerating or freezing, I don't know either. I realize this is not all that useful, but between the walk-in fridges, freezer, and steam room, I'd say they were controlling the temperature carefully.