Brown & Multi Grain Bread Processing Plant & Machinery Solutions

Wheat, the other grains and the seeds used for inclusion and topping are cleaned of dust, chaff, stones, light matter and discoloured kernels. Cleaning at intake protects the mill rolls and keeps foreign matter out of the finished loaf.

Grain is milled to wholemeal flour, or cracked coarser where visible pieces are wanted in the crumb, and the fractions are separated by sifting. Seeds are roasted where the recipe calls for a toasted flavour rather than a raw one.

Wholemeal flour, bran, cracked grain and seeds are weighed and dry blended into a consistent premix. Coarse grain and seed are then soaked in water, so that they do not draw moisture out of the dough during mixing and proving.

The dry premix and the soaked grain are combined with water, yeast, salt and improver and mixed into a dough. Bran and grain particles cut the gluten network, so these doughs are mixed and handled more gently than a white dough.

Dough is divided, moulded and placed into tins or onto trays, and the damp top is dressed with oats, seeds or cracked grain. The shaped dough then proves in a warm, humid chamber before it is sent to the oven.

Loaves are baked until the crust colours and the crumb is set, then cooled before they can be cut. Cooling is taken far enough that the softer wholemeal crumb slices cleanly instead of tearing.

Cooled loaves are sliced and packed, with batch and date details printed on each pack. Packs pass metal detection before cases are made up for dispatch.