If you think that a simple dough mixer and a large enough oven are all the equipment needed to start your own bakery or pizzeria, you’re widely mistaken. You see, between both these machines, stands a variety of equipment designed to efficiently accomplish each step in the process of creating delicious pastries. And dough proofing is one of these important steps that can greatly affect whether the final outcome is successful or not.
Proofing, or also colloquially known as rising, is needed so that the dough can achieve a greater height and volume than it would if put directly in the oven. Any dough containing yeast needs to be proved prior to the baking stage. Usually, there are three ways to do so. You can cover the dough and let it rise at room temperature, you can place the pan of dough near a heat source to speed up the process, or you can use a dough retarder proofer – a machine specifically designed for this task.
For a bakery or pizza business where preparation time needs to be as short as possible, a dough retarder proofer might be the best option. This machine is essentially a special cabinet that maintains consistent temperature and humidity levels. Because both the temperature and humidity are precisely set by you, the proofer allows you to have cimplete control on the proofing of the dough. Depending on your needs and the type of product you’re making, you can set the machine at a higher temperature to proof the dough faster, or at a lower one to slow down the process. Moreover, you can decrease the humidity to prevent crusting of the dough, or increase it if you like a more crispier outcome.
It’s also worth mentioning that dough retarder proofer is different from a proofer alone because it can postpone the proofing of the dough. It works similar to a refrigerator where the fermented dough can be stored for hours, until the next day, and even throughout the weekend. The same machine can then transform itself from a cold storage unit to a heated cabinet that encourages proofing. What this means is that you won’t need to open early in the morning to begin operations. The dough retarder proofer allows you to prepare and store the dough overnight, then have it in the oven first thing in the morning for a freshly baked product.
There is a wide range of dough retarder proofers suitable for any kind of business, from the smallest to the largest. Some models can come with a built-in sleep mode that activates in the event when the rack of dough in the machine has not been removed after the retarding, thus cooling the proofer down again and delaying any rising of the dough.
