Bakery Equipment

Choosing the right commercial mixers for your bakery starts with looking at your menu. Consider what you're making and in what volume as this is a key consideration when you're narrowing down your options between a planetary or spiral mixer.

Planetary mixers are a highly versatile option and can be used for everything from batters and icing to pastry and smaller dough batches. They operate with a mixing head that rotates while the bowl simultaneously turns, ensuring all-in mixing with even and consistent results.

Spiral mixers are a better choice when you need bulk preparation and are the best option for dough, gently developing gluten with minimal heat to avoid over-kneading that compromises the texture when you bake it. A spiral mixer is especially ideal for when you're producing bread or heavy doughs like sourdough or seeded loaves in larger volumes and can deliver bigger batches in shorter times.

Investing in equipment requires getting the right capacity, without ending up with a machine that creates more stock than you actually need. We recommend starting off with doing some calculations regarding how much you sell on your busiest days and working from there. You should also account for the space you actually have to bake in, ensuring you've got something like a high-capacity combi oven that's ideal for baking but can also accommodate different types of baked goods at the same time. Typically you'll want equipment that can deliver around 20% to 30% more than you need, giving you space to move up in production without needing to upgrade, while still not overloading your kitchen space with oversized equipment.

Getting the perfect thickness from your dough can be a challenge to achieve by hand when you go past a certain volume in production. If your bakery is producing large volumes of pastry or dough on a daily basis, investing in a sheeter quickly pays for itself in labour hours saved. Adding a commercial pastry sheeter to your setup can streamline production, give you better results, more control over how thick your pastry sheets are, and deliver the degree of consistency you need for perfect results.

Over or underproofing your dough will give you poor results, either giving you flat and sticky dough or coming out of the oven undercooked in the centre. To avoid this, having adjustable speed settings on your planetary mixer or spiral mixer is key. Many come with timers to remove the need to constantly monitor your dough, though accounting for different levels of heat and humidity is also important as these factors can influence the dough quality as well.

Your bowl needs to be just right too, with anything too small making it easy for ingredients to spill or under-mix, while something too large and the dough can fail to develop correctly. If you're unsure which size you need, you can contact the team at REO and we can give you a personal recommendation for your needs.

As with any commercial kitchen, hygiene is imperative for health and safety but also quality. When it comes to cleaning your mixers, trays, sheeters and dough rollers, make sure you're properly cleaning the trays and put any removable parts in the dishwasher if it's safe to do so to get the best possible sanitation. Equally, looking for bakery equipment that's easy to clean by hand helps to streamline the cleaning process. Look for stainless steel construction, sealed surfaces on mixers and sheeters to prevent flour and dough traps, and bowls that are simple to detach and wash. You should also periodically check the motors and make sure they're properly lubricated where needed so you get a consistent level of performance while also reducing the chances of wearing any parts out.

The layout of your commercial bakery kitchen is just as important as the equipment you have, helping to streamline production and reduce congestion. Start by looking at the space you have available, accounting for some extra room for power sources and enough room for staff to operate your bakery equipment. Equipment should be close to food and ingredient storage, along with intermediate space for food preparation. Equally, make sure your mixers, dough proofers, and sheeters are close to your oven and have enough room so your staff can access all sides easily. This helps with loading and unloading the oven, as well as completing regular cleaning tasks more easily.

Downtime in bakery equipment is usually a simple fix, and can often be prevented with a little regular maintenance. Common issues come from things like insufficient lubrication of moving parts like the motors or mixer arms, and buildup of flour and dough in moving parts. It's also important to make sure you're not over-working your bakery equipment as this will wear your appliances down, resulting in an entire replacement in some instances. Regular maintenance, periodic servicing for larger appliances, and proper cleaning can limit the amount of issues with equipment that could result in downtime.