Apparatus for stretching bread dough

Details Apparatus for stretching bread dough Apparatus for stretching bread dough

1999-04-19

2001-07-10

Davis, Robert (Department: 1722)

Plastic article or earthenware shaping or treating: apparatus

Press forming means, press reshaping means, or vulcanizing...

C425S372000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06257861

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for stretching a highly elastic material such as bread dough, and particularly to an apparatus for stretching bread dough that is continuously supplied by a conveyor, so as to form a thin and continuous sheet of bread dough, by simply applying vibrations, thereby easily forming a high-quality sheet of bread dough with a constant thickness and uniform inner layers.
2. Prior Art
To stretch elastic materials, a stress higher than their yield point has customarily been applied to them. However, the elasticity thus lost has not been automatically recovered. Therefore, in producing food, especially bread that requires elasticity as an important quality, a skilled manual operation has always been necessitated.
When bread is automatically produced by machinery, maintaining the elasticity of the bread dough is always considered troublesome. Moreover, if even a little of the elasticity is lost, it is difficult to produce bread having a taste like that in bread made by a skilled artisan. Therefore, potassium bromate and the like have been mixed in the material as chemical additives, and the stretched bread dough has then been put in a rest condition so that the elasticity (membrane-forming function) lost due to the machinery could be recovered.
Thus, the conventional method of stretching bread dough caused its inherent elasticity to be partly lost. Further, the twisting stress caused by any screw mechanism has been imparted to the bread dough, and has broken the gluten's gel structure so as to also cause the elasticity to be partly lost. To recover it, the chemical additives were added to the bread dough. However, as compared with the taste of manually-prepared bread, an inferior taste was obtained. In any event, using the chemical additives was an unnatural resolution of the problem.
Therefore, the applicant disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,804,225 an invention entitled “A Stretching Method and Apparatus” wherein highly viscous and elastic dough can be stretched into a thin sheet of dough (Japanese Patent Application 7-317211). It discloses an apparatus for stretching dough by planetary rollers that revolve along a circular orbit while rotating about their own axes. Below the rollers a conveying device is provided to provide a curved gap between the rollers and the device, the gap being gradually narrowed from the inlet to the outlet for the dough. The conveying device comprises a plurality of rollers and is adapted such that the peripheral speed of the rollers is gradually increased from the inlet to the outlet for the dough.
It was found that this apparatus can sufficiently stretch bread dough even when it has a high viscosity and high elasticity. However, the conveying device comprises only a plurality of rollers. Namely, due to a space between adjacent rollers, no continuous and generally flat conveying surface is provided. Therefore, a part of the bread dough tends to hang between the adjacent rollers. Thus, a sufficient stretching of the bread dough cannot be attained. This leads to a wrinkled sheet of bread dough. In other words, the poor stretching by this apparatus causes the dough to wrinkle, and thus a sufficiently uniform and sufficiently thick sheet of bread dough is not obtained.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of this invention is to provide an apparatus for stretching dough having a high viscosity and high elasticity into a thin sheet of dough. This apparatus can easily and effectively stretch such bread dough into a high-quality one having a uniform thickness and uniform inner layers.
After having discussed ways to resolve the above problem, the inventor found that if at the part of the outlet for bread dough of the conveying device that includes a plurality of rollers of the apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,804,225 an arcuate plate is provided in place of a roller or rollers, the bread dough can be effectively and uniformly stretched on the plate by the planetary rollers. This results in homogeneous bread dough having a uniform thickness and inner layers that do not include any large bubbles. This finding led to completing this invention.
Thus, this invention provides an apparatus for stretching bread dough and the like comprising: a rotating member that includes a plurality of planetary rollers that revolve along a circular orbit, each roller being freely rotatable about its axis, a conveying device provided below said rotating member such that a first gap in which dough is pressed is provided, said first gap gradually narrowing from an inlet for bread dough to an outlet for it, said conveying device including a plurality of rollers, and a speed-setting device for individually controlling the speed that some of the rollers of the plurality of rollers of the conveying device rotate such that the speed that the plurality of rollers of the conveying device rotate gradually increases from the upstream end to the downstream end, characterized by: an arcuate plate provided below said rotating member and downstream of said plurality of rollers such that a second gap in which the bread dough is pressed is provided.
The freely rotatable rollers that travel along the circular orbit of this invention periodically vibrate the bread dough so as to generate a temporary fluid phenomenon that is called a thixotropic effect. During the short period when this effect appears, the bread dough is stretched by means of “tensile stress,” so as to produce a continuous sheet of bread dough with its gel structure unbroken. This sheet of bread dough can be wound up to make a roll of continuous rod-like bread dough having a diameter that can be varied. This sheet can be cut into a predetermined length so as to thereafter complete the dividing stage of the sheet of bread dough.
The fluid property, which is one of the effects of the thixotropy, is reversible. Therefore, the bread dough that is stretched to be thin that employs this effect tends to recover its original elasticity within a few minutes after it is put in a rest condition. Therefore, as compared with the conventional dividing method, where the elastic structure is broken, the apparatus of this invention can produce a sheet of dough that is stretched to be thin by the use of the thixotropic effect, without losing the membrane-forming function.
The conveying device of this invention includes an arcuate plate positioned below the rotating member and downstream of a plurality of rollers such that a second gap in which bread dough is pressed by the planetary rollers is provided. The arcuate plate provides a continuous and generally flat conveying surface. Thus, the bread dough can be effectively and uniformly stretched on the arcuate plate by the planetary rollers. This results in a predetermined sheet of bread dough having a desired thickness. Further, the inner layers of the bread dough are also homogeneous and have no large bubbles.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4880375 (1989-11-01), Hayashi
patent: 5154941 (1992-10-01), Hayashi
patent: 5783218 (1998-07-01), Morikawa
patent: 5804225 (1998-09-01), Hayashi
patent: 6036909 (2000-03-01), Baum
patent: 7-317211 (1995-11-01), None

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