Does anybody use a dough rounder. Does it pay for itself, or is it a machine that does not end up much faster than a human. We make the dough for both stores in one store. Due to the nature of the business my better employees end up doing dough when they could be used doing something more productive.
Well worth the money IMO! It’s a one man show with a rounder, can’t imagine doing dough without it.
If our dough process were anything close to normal, I would think that machine would be worth having if you have the space and depending on how much it would cost.
Definitely worth the investment. As mentioned above, it makes making dough a one person job. We mix batches of dough with 100Lbs of flour and can cut, round and tray a batch in under 15 minutes easily. We use the R-900 T from A and M MFG.
We have one of the A-M Manufacturing dough rounders, and it will round the dough pieces as fast as you can through them into the chute. With the optional collection table (a round rotating table that collects the dough balls as they exit the rounder) cutting/scaling, rounding and traying up the dough balls is truly a one person job. There are also just 4 moving parts to the rounder so cleaning it is a snap. It operates on 110-V, and it has a foot print of about 30-inches by 30-inches, maybe a little less, and it is on wheels, so it is completely portable, making it easy to roll aside when not being used. By the way, it never goes on break, gets distracted, or calls in sick.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
The other reason to use a dough rounder is to get a better, more consistent product. Nobody can get a dough ball as tight as an AM dough rounder. A tighter, rounder doughball makes a better pizza.
Great, this is exactly what I wanted to hear. Do any of your have divider/rounders or do you just use the rounders?
A dough divider/rounder will add a whole new dimension to the cost of your equipment package, and to be honest with you, I don’t think a divider is needed until you reach a point where you’re making several hundred dough balls a day. With one man at the bench, we can divide an entire 80-pound dough into 10-ounce dough pieces in about 15-minutes. With another person catching the dough balls as they come out of the rounder, two people can divide, round, and box an 80-pound dough in 10-ounce pieces within 20-minutes without a problem. We do it all the time.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
Rounders are great for average and above average production
Deviders ar Great for large Production If you are doing the dough balls for 5 or 6 shops Otherwise the time spent cleaning the machine is more than running the dough balls.
George Mills
At what point is a rounder justified? How many pounds of flour?
I would say that you might begin to justify a rounder when your dough ball production reaches 300 pieces per day. Lets assume 10-ounces per dough ball, 10 X 300 = 3,000 divided by 16 = 187.5-pounds of dough divided by 1.62 = 115-pounds of flour per day. At this level, with projected continued growth you could begin to justify a divider-rounder in my opinion.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
I’m looking at a rounder too. I am having trouble with my hands and want to get a rounder to make things easier. We make about 500pcs a day. The collection table on top of the AM machine seems very expensive. Is it worth it?
Sam;
With the collection table dough scaling, balling and boxing becomes a one man/person operation, without it, it is better done as a two person operation.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
We don’t use a rounder…in all 17 years haven’t even considered it…so find the thread interesting.
We do our prep in the early am no distractions. Two people can get each batch of dough balled before the next batch is done mixing. Doesn’t take anymore time than anything thing else we prep.