The smell of freshly baked goods can put a smile on anyone’s face. If you want to help make people happy by offering them your baked goods, then it might be time to think about opening your own bakery. Sure, the market is competitive as the bread wars showed us not that long ago, but you shouldn’t let the challenge stop you from making your dreams come true!
The way to ensure your story is one of success is by doing serious planning, both before and after you open, so you can choose the perfect location, the necessary inventory, and source the best ingredients. Moreover, since accidents can always happen no matter how careful you are, one of the first things you’d have to decide on investment-wise in order to fail-proof your business is to get suitable protection in the form of insurance.
In addition, making sure you invest in versatile and efficient baker equipment also deserves particular attention. After all, each and every machine, tool and accessory you’d have can affect the whole operation and efficiency, so it’s needless to emphasise the essence of choosing well.
But since there’s a wide range of quality equipment pieces, you might find it a daunting task to buy the right ones for you. The key lies in thinking about what you want to produce, the type of pastries specifically, as well as how much. These two aspects should guide you through when determining the machinery you require, its capacity, components and features. The price and brand are extra elements that you’d have to look into as well before making the purchase.
Dough Necessities
The basis for all pastries and baked goods you’d make is the dough, and that’s where you should start when on the quest for the bits and pieces of commercial bakery equipment.
The Mixers – Yes, we get it, mixing and kneading your own bread dough by hand is exciting. But when there’s a high demand for your bread, you’d find the addition of a dough mixer incredibly convenient – it cuts the labour and saves you time while it increases the production quality!
Given that space might be an issue if your bakery is smaller, you must consider the mixer’s size first and foremost. The type of the dough is also an important indicator to follow since it wouldn’t do you much good choosing a mixer that can’t stand stiffer dough if that’s exactly what you work with the most. Timers, programmable controllers, temperature measurement, speed and intensity are all features that make a difference so don’t forget to include them too.
The Proofers – Next up on your list of bakery equipment essentials, the proofing cabinets come in handy with keeping the dough in the perfect conditions that allow it to rise in uniform fermentation.
This is so because they’re designed to distribute cold, heat and moisture throughout the whole chamber. For those who are after consistency, i.e. repeatable results, a proofer is simply a must-have. But first, remember to take the full height into account, along with the type of door the design has (whether you prefer full or split), and the number and material of the shelves.
The Dividers and Sheeters – Same as with the proofers, if you want to improve the dough consistency and get uniform results, then you can’t do without these two. While the dividers help out with dividing your dough evenly, perfect for making your breads, or even pizzas and pies, the sheeters are made for helping you out with the thickness and size of each divided ball of dough.
Using these two machines is how you get breads that look and taste the same which is important especially if your production is on a large scale! Some of the features you should look for are dough width, speed control, and of course the size of both the machines.
Baking Necessities
It’s a no-brainer the oven is one of the most used pieces of baker equipment. As such, you can’t simply make up your mind by choosing based on the aesthetics of a design or the materials it’s made of. You also need to focus on the type of products you’d be making (what’s ideal for bread may not work best for pizza), as well as the quantity.
Deck Oven – State-of-the-art bread requires a state-of-the-art oven. What gives artisan bread the eye-catching and delightful crust is the stone cooking deck of this type of oven, and you certainly won’t regret buying it. Still, if space is an issue for you they may not be the best option.
Convection Oven – For quick and even baking suitable for a variety of baked products, this is the alternative you should be after. Apart from the outcome, you’d also love the fact they’re affordable and don’t take up as much space as the deck ovens.
Revolving Oven – If you need a design that’s created for baking a large number of products, this is it. The efficiency is outstanding, yet it’s not enough to make it the best option for most bakers due to the high output and higher initial cost.
