Brioche Doughnut Fermentation - Commercial Scale

[mamarita]

Hello all, interested to hear if anyone has any insight into this:

I'm opening a donut shop based on a recipe I've made for years. We first opened in a commissary and made small batches (100-200/day), and now that our kitchen is ready in our shop, we've been working on tweaking the process to suit our space. I'm having difficulty understanding the best process for fermentation on a large scale.

We mix our dough in a planetary mixer, so we are very focused on achieving the proper gluten structure and staying within our DDT. We then do a 3-hour fermentation at room temp (in a large box in a proofer at 23*C) - we used to do a de-gassing and folding halfway through, and again prior to putting it in the fridge for about 15 hours, but with the large batches it is increasingly difficult to do so.

And depending on how the fermentation process goes, the proofing process changes as well. This changes based on who makes the doughnuts (we have 3 bakers here, plus myself).

We're trying to get our process down so everyone who works here has a consistent brioche doughnut coming out of the fryer, but it's not the case - the doughnuts are different depending on who made the dough.

If there is any insight to this - our cake doughnuts and cruellers are perfect, but I'm on the struggle bus with ensuring our brioche-style raised doughnuts are consistent.

Would a 3 hour ferment still be required on such a large batch? How do I know? I watch the bubbles and take temps, sometimes we're gentle with it, sometimes we degas it a bit more firmly prior to folding it. When I make a small batch, it always comes out perfect because it's easy - form a ball, ferment room temp, 1.5 hours in de-gas and fold, 1.5 hours later de-gas and fold and put in fridge overnight - the larger the batch, the consistency is lacking, and I'm not sure how to fix and create a process that will be easy enough for employees (who've all gone to school and have had years of experience in various bread and pastry making) to follow consistently.

Thanks in advance for reading and any insight you can provide.

 

[retired baker]

Hello all, interested to hear if anyone has any insight into this:

I'm opening a donut shop based on a recipe I've made for years. We first opened in a commissary and made small batches (100-200/day), and now that our kitchen is ready in our shop, we've been working on tweaking the process to suit our space. I'm having difficulty understanding the best process for fermentation on a large scale.

We mix our dough in a planetary mixer, so we are very focused on achieving the proper gluten structure and staying within our DDT. We then do a 3-hour fermentation at room temp (in a large box in a proofer at 23*C) - we used to do a de-gassing and folding halfway through, and again prior to putting it in the fridge for about 15 hours, but with the large batches it is increasingly difficult to do so.

And depending on how the fermentation process goes, the proofing process changes as well. This changes based on who makes the doughnuts (we have 3 bakers here, plus myself).

We're trying to get our process down so everyone who works here has a consistent brioche doughnut coming out of the fryer, but it's not the case - the doughnuts are different depending on who made the dough.

If there is any insight to this - our cake doughnuts and cruellers are perfect, but I'm on the struggle bus with ensuring our brioche-style raised doughnuts are consistent.

Would a 3 hour ferment still be required on such a large batch? How do I know? I watch the bubbles and take temps, sometimes we're gentle with it, sometimes we degas it a bit more firmly prior to folding it. When I make a small batch, it always comes out perfect because it's easy - form a ball, ferment room temp, 1.5 hours in de-gas and fold, 1.5 hours later de-gas and fold and put in fridge overnight - the larger the batch, the consistency is lacking, and I'm not sure how to fix and create a process that will be easy enough for employees (who've all gone to school and have had years of experience in various bread and pastry making) to follow consistently.

Thanks in advance for reading and any insight you can provide.

It works best to have a chef everyone has to follow, theres a few different methods, I have my own way too but consistency requires one consistent method. Sounds like you have a lot of labor.
I worked for dunkin donuts 50 yrs ago, me and the baker put out enough to supply a decent size store and a few wholesale accounts.
Picked up a lot of neat tricks at dunkies, the old timers were clever.

 

[mamarita]

It works best to have a chef everyone has to follow, theres a few different methods, I have my own way too but consistency requires one consistent method. Sounds like you have a lot of labor.
I worked for dunkin donuts 50 yrs ago, me and the baker put out enough to supply a decent size store and a few wholesale accounts.
Picked up a lot of neat tricks at dunkies, the old timers were clever.

That's what I"m trying to instill, is one proper method, unfortunately I feel like there's a case of too many chefs in the kitchen with consultants providing different methods to the same recipe. One even recommended docking the dough to remove any blistering or air tunnels in the dough - isn't that ridiculous? So I'm trying to take the lead here and figure this out, as I was the one who started this on my own, but going bigger isn't easier...

 

[retired baker]

You're on the right track.
BFT can be a problem if you let the dough get away from you.
In larger batches its best to mix the dough then break it down into smaller portions, place on sheetpans and chill.
This is preferable to giving it a rise on the bench (or bowl).

Larger batches of dough will generate more internal heat , its non linear.
Theres more dough inside than outside (more internal dough than skin), as the batches increase in size it keeps getting worse.
Internal volume of dough increases by the cube, buy the external skin only increases by the square.
So the inside volume grows by x3 vs x2 for the skin or crust.
Its gonna proof exponentially faster than a smaller batch.

If you make a 40 lb batch, pull it from the mixer asap and divide into 4 slabs, place on sheetpans and chill overnite, it will be easy as putty to work with once its thoroughly retarded. Any other problems should be simple to sort out once you have the dough under control.

 

[DonaldR]

You're on the right track.
BFT can be a problem if you let the dough get away from you.
In larger batches its best to mix the dough then break it down into smaller portions, place on sheetpans and chill.
This is preferable to giving it a rise on the bench (or bowl).

Larger batches of dough will generate more internal heat , its non linear.
Theres more dough inside than outside (more internal dough than skin), as the batches increase in size it keeps getting worse.
Internal volume of dough increases by the cube, buy the external skin only increases by the square.
So the inside volume grows by x3 vs x2 for the skin or crust.
Its gonna proof exponentially faster than a smaller batch.

If you make a 40 lb batch, pull it from the mixer asap and divide into 4 slabs, place on sheetpans and chill overnite, it will be easy as putty to work with once its thoroughly retarded. Any other problems should be simple to sort out once you have the dough under control.

Great suggestion, and probably the solution that was needed. Keep us posted on the progress, please.

 

[retired baker]

Great suggestion, and probably the solution that was needed. Keep us posted on the progress, please.

called milk cream donut in Korea, same thing.
Notice the dough goes straight to chill down after mixing.

 

[briochenewbaker]

It works best to have a chef everyone has to follow, theres a few different methods, I have my own way too but consistency requires one consistent method. Sounds like you have a lot of labor.
I worked for dunkin donuts 50 yrs ago, me and the baker put out enough to supply a decent size store and a few wholesale accounts.
Picked up a lot of neat tricks at dunkies, the old timers were clever.

How do these yeast donuts look so beautiful! This is what I'm looking to achieve but I'm so far away