Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Processes – Treatment or preparation of farinaceous dough – batter – or...
Patent
1994-02-16
1996-12-03
Kepplinger, Esther M.
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Processes
Treatment or preparation of farinaceous dough, batter, or...
426500, 426512, 426517, 425323, 425391, 425403, 425470, 53744, 53748, 414794, 4147942, 1984186, 1984688, A21C 308
Patent
active
055805990
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to a process for the mechanical production of pretzels from a portion of dough, a device for implementing such a process, and a process and a device for producing a piece of dough in the shape of a string of dough having predetermined cross-sectional and longitudinal dimensions.
Various attempts have been made towards automated pretzel production in a form that would be profitable for small bakeries, as well. Considering the comparatively high labor costs, it must presently be assumed that the actual production costs in manual production cannot be passed on through the sales price of the baked goods.
Automated production lines for pretzels as currently marketed either work to produce high reject rates, or else their high price of acquisition is worthwhile only at extremely large numbers of pieces.
Although attempts at finding solutions for the mechanical production of pretzels were undertaken very early on in order to reduce the time and labor expended in their production, the attempts having hitherto become known are throughout tainted by deficiencies which hardly allow an economical use of known devices, especially not for small bakeries. Particularly for such enterprises a maximum degree of simplicity and operational safety of the construction and its control are important, with a maximum degree of serviceability and cleanability being expected, while its operation should be possible for untrained hands. Known devices are not suited for the following reasons.
From DE-AS 1782289, a pretzel knotting device became known the kinematics of which emulate the pretzel knotting process in manual production. Herein it is a prerequisite that the string of dough forming the starting point for the pretzel knotting process should come to lie on a support in a precisely determined alignment and shape, such that the grippers which are supported by coaxial shafts grasp the thinner ends of the string and, in cooperation with particularly shaped retaining grippers, are able to carry out the knotting process in such a manner that upon its completion, the ends of the string come to lie precisely on the intended locations in the area of transition to the centerpiece of the pretzel. In view of the fact that the ends of the string are generally essentially thinner than the centerpiece of the string, use of this known knotting device results in a relatively high reject rate, with the prior art furthermore neither providing an approach to achieve precise positioning of the string of dough, nor consecutive transport of the knotted raw pretzel.
These disadvantages were recognized early on, and in DE-OS 27 31 997, a process and device for producing such pretzels are described whereby knotting the string of dough into a pretzel shape was to be carried out more gently. This known device concurrently attained the object of conveying the raw pretzel on as gently as possible. The knotting support, which for this purpose was designed in two parts, was supplied with two pivoting axes which were released after the knotting process was completed, such that the knotted pretzel could drop downwards. The support trapdoor opening in this way was, however, static during the pretzel knotting process, such that the string of dough had to be dragged over a considerable distance during the knotting process. As a consequence, a layer of dough continuously builds up on the support even when only a small number of pretzels are knotted, eventually disrupting the mechanical knotting process. As furthermore in these known kinematics, an action for conveying the string of dough had to be carried out in synchronicity with the pivoting motion of the knotting body, this known process, or this known device, was not successful due to this lack of synchronising ability for these actions.
Attempts were also made since early on to subject the kinematics of the knotting process to a variation. As a rule, such variations brought about a very complex moving mechanism for the single functional parts of the device as e.g. shown in DE 45 73 08, whi
REFERENCES:
patent: 3392853 (1968-07-01), Mitchell et al.
patent: 3511189 (1970-05-01), Schafer
patent: 4019621 (1977-04-01), Honson
patent: 4026421 (1977-05-01), Lotz
patent: 4984677 (1991-01-01), Prakken
patent: 5009910 (1991-04-01), Zwicker
Cano Milton I.
Kepplinger Esther M.
Muk Metall-Und Kunststoff-Vertriebs GmbH
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