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Continuous mixing for pizza dough

Continuous mixing for pizza dough

In industrial pizza production, dough quality is the foundation of the final product. The perfect crust depends on precise hydration, gluten development, and controlled fermentation. Traditional batch mixing and fermentation methods can be operator-controlled, inconsistent, and hard to scale. Sobatech offers a modern, fully continuous and automated solution: continuous dough mixing combined with continuous bulk fermentation. Together, these systems ensure a perfectly developed dough every second of production, delivering higher consistency, greater efficiency, and superior product quality.

Continuous production line for pizza dough

What is continuous mixing in pizza dough production?

Dough quality

In industrial pizza dough production, controlling gluten development and hydration is essential for achieving uniform extensibility, gas retention, and bake performance. Continuous mixing applies consistent mechanical energy and shear to every piece of dough, eliminating variability caused by batch-to-batch differences. The result is a stable dough matrix with predictable handling properties, reducing downstream adjustments during sheeting, proofing, and baking.

Continuous flow

Continuous mixing delivers a steady stream of dough with constant temperature, density, and rheological properties. This enables direct integration with makeup lines, reduces intermediate holding times, and minimizes fermentation inconsistencies. Real-time process control allows adjustment of mixing intensity, energy input, and ingredient dosing, ensuring optimal dough characteristics.

Efficiency and scalability

Continuous mixing reduces downtime, eliminates batch changeovers, and optimizes floor space. Automated ingredient feeding and inline quality monitoring lower labor requirements and reduce waste. The compact design and controlled energy input improve overall process efficiency, supporting high-volume production while maintaining tight control over dough temperature, hydration, and rheology.

From batch to continuous mixing

Process advantages

Conventional pizza dough mixing involves loading ingredients into a batch mixer, mixing until developed, unloading, and repeating the cycle. This start-stop method is time-consuming and introduces variations in dough temperature, hydration, and texture. These fluctuations can affect dough handling during downstream processes, leading to inconsistent pizza base quality.

Sobatech’s continuous mixing technology replaces this with a continuous process. All ingredients are processed under precisely controlled conditions, ensuring optimal gluten development, constant dough temperature, and uniform hydration. This ensures a stable production flow and minimizes downstream process adjustments.

Key advantages over traditional mixing include:

Precise water absorption and gluten development for optimal elasticity.
Stable dough temperature to maintain yeast activity and fermentation consistency.
Reduced handling time and labour requirements.

Technical highlights

Sobatech designs its dough systems to deliver consistency and efficiency for industrial pizza dough production. Every component is engineered to optimise mixing and fermentation, ensuring high-quality dough with minimal downtime.

Key technical features include:

High product-tooling ratio ensurring shorter mixing times
Ensures uniform texture and gluten structure development
Maintaining consistent dough temperature, quality, and dough characteristics at all times
Automatic Cleaning in Place (CIP)
Fully automated dark room operation
Continuous (fully automated) bulk fermenter available for dough resting easing pizza forming and shaping
Automatic rework/scrap feeding system for recycling dough offcuts back into the mixer, eliminating dough waste.

Continuous bulk fermentation

Perfect pizza dough is not just about mixing, fermentation also plays a crucial role. During this stage, the dough develops flavour, aroma, and extensibility, all essential for a perfect crust. A short resting phase prevents gluten retraction, helping pizzas keep a consistent round shape. This resting phase is what we call the Continuous Bulk Fermenter: a fully integrated, continuous process that takes place immediately after the mixer. From the fermenter, the dough is fed directly into the receiving hopper of the make-up line.

By combining continuous mixing with continuous bulk fermentation, Sobatech enables pizza producers to run a truly continuous dough process, from raw ingredients to fully fermented dough, ready to feed directly into sheeters, proofers, and baking lines.

Explore continuous fermenting

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Reach out today to discover how our continuous mixing systems can enhance your production process.