Types of Dough Mixers

[Hobart01]

Recently there was an article talking about the amount of time it takes the dough to form depending on whether you have a traditional mixer, a spiral mixer, or a VCM. I would like to know more about the dough properties from each of these types of machines and the advantages/disadvantages of each. Which is considered the best and why? Or is there a way to get dough with the same quality from a VCM that you get with a spiral or traditional mixer.

Thanks

Eric Lutz

 

[George_Mills]

Hi Eric:

Tom the Dough Doctor will no doubt respond. I do not mix dough nor bake pizza. We have though, equipped a few thousand pizza shops and just about none of our clients use the VCM type for mixing dough.

Apparently the spiral mixers produce the best product but unless a quite expensive one is purchased with a removable bowl its a bear getting the dough out of the bowl.

Our clients use Hobart planetary mixers by about 98%.

George Mills

 

[paul7979]

George Mills:

Hi Eric:
Apparently the spiral mixers produce the best product but unless a quite expensive one is purchased with a removable bowl its a bear getting the dough out of the bowl.

I beg to differ on the opinion that spiral mixers are harder to get the dough out of. Pulling dough from my Empire mixer, I never have to get closer than 18 inches to the floor. In my old Hobart 1401 or M-802, the bottom of the bowl was about six inches from the floor when the bowl was on a dolly. No question about it, pulling dough from my Empire mixer is MUCH easier than pulling from a Hobart. Now cleaning the bowl is another story.

 

[George_Mills]

Hi Paul:

Always glad to hear from an actual user.

As I stated I have almost no spiral mixer users and i can only report what I have been told

The very few users I encountered indicated difficulties getting the dough out. I can imagine that cleaning them would be a problem.

Lots of places have women workers that have a problem getting the dough up on the table when in a bowl. How do you people handle a bowl full of dough out of the bowl?

George Mills

 

[Patriot_sPizza]

Cleaning a spiral mixer is a snap…sort of…when I had mine, @ 1st, it was a pain 2 clean…but we had a small wetvac & problem was solved…

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

Eric;
Pizza doughs are typically under mixedas compared to, say, bread and bun doughs. The VCM is a good mixer, and it is used in a number of pizzeria operations, but the tendency of the VCM is to over mix the dough slightly. Also, the high mixing speed seems to promote stickiness in the dough initially after mixing, whereas the spiral or planetary mixers tend to be much more controllable, making it easier to get/achieve the amount of mixing/under mixing desired. The stretching type of mixing action also provides for a drier dough immediately after mixing, making for an easier dough to work with during scaling and balling. In my opinion, the spiral mixer is as durable, or even more so than a planetery mixer with mixing stiff pizza doughs, but the spiral mixers have two drawbacks, 1) Lack of an attachment hub means that you can’t use the mixer to process your cheese and vegetables. 2) It doesn’t work with a paddle/flat beater attachment, so using the spiral mixer to make your sauce is out of the question.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[bodegahwy]

We have used a Stefan VCM for close to 12 years. Simple, reliable, fast. A recipe based on 25 lbs of flour mixes in about 2 minutes. What Tom says about stickiness and over mixing is true. But… our mixer at least, has a digital timer. We have a preset time for dough and never mix beyond that. No headaches. The VCM also dices up 20 lbs of cheese in 30 seconds.

We can not do vegies or sauce. We do sauce with an electric drill in 5 gallon buckets.