The problem and its context
Hot-dog rolls need to have regular shape (roughly cylindrical) with low density and soft crust and crumb. Crust softness is an important
character because of the impression of ‘freshness’ that it creates when the consumer holds and eats the finished roll, especially be-cause the roll will often be cold and therefore cannot benefit from the refreshing effects associated with re-heating. Commonly hot-dog rolls are baked in indented pans in order to deliver the required shape.
There had been a number of complaints regarding dry eating characteristics of hot-dog roll crusts. Sometimes the surface was described as having a ‘sandpaper-like’ texture. Attempts had been made to reduce this problem by applying a water spray after the dough pieces had left the prover and before they entered the oven (in a manner similar to that used for making hamburger buns with sesame seeds on the top) but his had resulted in a loss of product volume and a flatter product shape.
The analysis
The control of humidity in the final prover is an important part of the development of the appropriate shape of fermented prod-ucts, even those baked in pans and on trays such as hot-dog rolls.
Too much humidity in the prover and the products will flow, too little and product expansion is restricted by the formation of a dry crust. Typically final prover humidity is set to deliver a value slightly lower but fairly close to the relative humidity in the prod-uct. The latter will almost certainly be over 90% for fermented products, and so final prover humidity should be in the same region.
The formation of a dry skin on fermented products is caused by the evaporation of moisture from the product surface and is affected not only by the relative humidity of the final prover but also air circulation. Exposure of the fermenting dough pieces to air moving at high speeds can quickly cause skinning. If a product has skinned, then the application of any moisture to the surface will require the passage of some time (minutes) for the relative humidity of the dough surface to be restored.
The causes and solution
In an attempt to control the shape of the final product, the final prover humidity had been set at around 70–80% and during the 50-to 60-min final proof this low setting had allowed some dehydration of the dough surface to occur.
After leaving the final prover the track on which the trays of rolls moved travelled in a gentle arc for some minutes. This allowed for some further dehydration to occur not least because the trays passed underneath extractor fans fitted to make the working environment
of the bakery more comfortable. A considerable air draught was noticeable at this point.
While the water spray appeared to offset some of the skinning problem the impact of the cold water spray (around 20◦C) on the warm dough pieces (around 40◦C) caused a slight cooling of the dough pieces with subsequent lack of oven spring in the oven (loss of volume).
The skinning could be eliminated by raising the final prover hu-midity and covering the tray track to eliminate draughts. In these circumstances the water spray was not required; any loss of shape because of the higher final prover humidity could be offset by in-creasing mixing time or energy to yield a dough with improved gas retention.
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