Dough divider

Details Dough divider Dough divider

1997-10-17

1999-04-20

Mackey, James P.

Plastic article or earthenware shaping or treating: apparatus

Control means responsive to or actuated by means sensing or...

Feed control of material en route to shaping area

425240, 425241, 425448, 425449, A21C 502

Patent

active

058956689

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improved dough divider. The dough divider may be provided as an accessory of, or an attachment to, an existing dough mixer, or may be provided integrally with the dough mixer.
2. Prior Art
In medium to large bakeries, bread dough is produced by the following methods:
(A) Dough is mixed in a dough mixer, usually of the spiral beater type, where the dough is removed either by hand, by cutting it out of the bowl; or by removing the bowl, lifting the bowl several meters and inverting it to deposit the mixed dough into a chute or hopper of an automatic dough divider, where the dough is divided into portions. In some cases, the entire mixer is lifted and inverted to permit the dough to enter the divider hopper.
The divider works by means of a square or half-round piston drawing dough into a cavity by suction, the dough is then trapped in the cavity by a sliding knife blade. The trapped dough, which could weigh approximately two kilograms, is highly compressed and force into another cavity whereby as much air as possible is displaced from the dough. This pocket then moves away from the piston cutting off a set volume of dough, and because most of the air has been dispelled, the dough is therefore a set weight.
(B) In some instances, a pre-weighed large portion of dough is placed in one large cavity, whereby the dough is compressed by raising the platform on which it is placed, and the dough is then divided by means of a honeycomb arrangement of blades, thus cutting the dough into set portions. This machine is compact and relatively inexpensive to manufacture; however, dough portions still need to be pre-weighed, the dough must still be removed manually from the mixer before dividing, and the divider will only produce dough pieces weighing from 200-900 grams. As bread rolls require pieces weighing from 40 grams to 120 grams, a separate divider is required for rolls.
Typically, an automatic divider of the type discussed in (A) above, costs $AU30,000, while the dough divider of method (B) will typically cost approximately $AU12000-15000; and a divider for buns will cost a further $AU12000 approximately.


SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION

The object of the present invention is to provide a dividing system on the dough mixer, so that dough is portioned off in the mixer bowl.
It is a preferred object to provide a dividing system which avoids the need for inverting the bowl (or the mixer) and avoids the need to remove dough manually from the bowl.
It is a further preferred object to provide a dividing system where the weight of the dough can be set for different bakery products, eg., bread loaves, buns, rolls, etc.
It is a further preferred object to provide a dividing system which may be provided as an attachment to existing dough mixers, or as an integral installation thereon.
Other preferred objects will become apparent from the following description.
In a first aspect, the present invention resides in a dough divider including:
a frame, locatable adjacent a mixing bowl of a dough mixer;
a first cylinder, hingedly mounted on the frame, for movement between a first position and a second position;
a reciprocating sleeve or tube in the first cylinder;
a first reciprocating piston in the sleeve or tube;
a divider body on the frame, extendable into at least a portion of the mixer bowl, having a curved face engageable with dough in the mixer bowl;
a second cylinder in the divider body, operably connected to the curved face; and
a second reciprocating piston in the second cylinder, so arranged that:
in the first position, the first piston and the sleeve or tube are retracted and the first cylinder and/or the sleeve or tube receives a charge of dough from the curved face of the divider body as the mixing bowl rotates;
the sleeve or tube is advanced to cut the charge of dough from the remainder of the dough in the mixing bowl;
the first cylinder is moved to the second position and the charge of dough is transferred to the second cylinder by a

REFERENCES:
patent: 4634026 (1987-01-01), Suay Puig et al.
patent: 4828863 (1989-05-01), Aoki
patent: 5074744 (1991-12-01), Nose et al.
patent: 5227174 (1993-07-01), Konig
patent: 5441342 (1995-08-01), Konig et al.

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