Troubleshooting Dough Divider/Rounder: Help Needed

[DBaker]

Hi,

I have recently purchased a dough rounder/divider and can't figure this thing out. The dough comes out of the divider all diff sizes and is torn looking. My bread is 55% hydration for bagels. Please someone walk me through this. It's a dough divider that you drop dough through the top through augers and then out a hole and it gets cut and drops down through a spiral. Vague manual, and I've looked everywhere online. Please help me!

 

[Norcalbaker59]

You should contact the manufacturer’s customer service rep. Manufactures of commercial, and specialty equipment offer assistance in troubleshooting problems with operating the equipment.

Bagels dough is not normally balled. The dough is formed into a cylindrical shape. Strips cut and the ends pinched to form a doughnut shape. Commercial bagel machines don’t ball the dough.

Dough ballers are normally used in commercial pizza production and bread rolls.

Bagels are very unusual in that it is a very dry dough. The hydration level of 50% and 57% is much lower than all other doughs besides pretzels. By contrast pizza dough and bread rolls can be as high as 70% hydration. The average bread dough has an average hydration of about 60%. It maybe you’re using the wrong machine for the type of dough/application.

The manufacture of the machine should be able to tell you the dough requires, appropriate applications, and what adjustments to make to the dough and machine to make it work for you.

 

[ChesterV]

Along with Norcalbaker, I agree, I've never seen a device for making bagels, unless you have a donut machine set up for heavy breads, which doesn't work well. Bagels are one of the few things that are usually still made by hand.

I know production companies use bagel making machines, but those are heavy duty, large production machines with a lot of force and power behind them. Not something a private baker would use.

I've seen some dough machines that make dough balls, but unless the machine is supposed to be calibrated for specific sized balls, you aren't going to get the same size each time.

I also agree you should contact the manufacturer for more information. They may have an instructional video you Youtube as well........a lot of companies are doing that nowadays.