GB632352A - Improvements in and relating to the manufacture of bread and like cereal products - Google Patents

Abstract

632,352. Folding dough. FREARS & BLACKS, Ltd., and FREARS, J. N. Dec. 4, 1946, No. 35919. [Class 87 (ii)] [Also in Groups VI, XII, XXIV and XXX] In the manufacture of bread or like cereal product as a continuous endless loaf a plurality of parallel troughs are formed on an endless chain conveyer extending through a' prover and baking oven by short lengths 13 of metal mounted on slats 6 connected across the chains, the lengths 13 being outwardly inclined and normally abutting edgewise but diverging apart at each end of the conveyer. A sheet of dough is fed from a hopper through feed rollers 16, 17 on to the conveyer, roller 16 being formed with discs or knives cutting the sheet into separate widths for each trough. The rollers are mounted on arms 19 oscillated about a fulcrum spindle 20 by discs 31 with offset crank pins 32, the discs being mounted on a countershaft 28 supported on the arms and the pins 32 on fixed slotted bearings, as a result the dough sheets being deposited in vertical sinuous folds in the troughs. The roller 17 is driven in timed relation with the conveyer from the countershaft 28 which is chain connected to sprockets 25 driven from the conveyer drive shaft 7, and the roller 16 is driven at equal speed from the roller 17 by spur gearing. Rams 34 mounted within the feed ends of the troughs are driven synchronously with the arms 19 from a rod 37 engaged in slotted brackets 41 depending from the arms, to press the folds of dough together. The rams 34 are hollow and have perforated faces with flared openings through which air under pressure passes continuously or during the compression stroke from a manifold 44 to prevent adhesion of the dough. The rams have terminal periods of dwell in forward and retracted positions. One or more endless bands 48 extending over part of the prover and/or oven and moving at conveyer speed may act as lids pressing upon the dough sections to square their shape. The baked loaves at the oven exit pass to a table or conveyer on which they are simultaneously and regulatably divided into sizes and/or sliced. The dough may be initially proved before feeding into the troughs and may alternatively be fed by hand or mechanically into the troughs in the form of balls subsequently allowed to unite.