Diving Arm Mixer

Guess you should tell us where you live.

 Wow!, I guess that mixer is for a business, it would have to go in my garage. Did the Sopranos use a mixer like that to make someone disappear into a giant loaf of Italian bread? 

Now I going to get started on my best  attempt at sour dough bread.  

            Joe

http://www.diosna.com/uk/bakery-systems/products/kneading-machines/l-shaped-mixers/l-shaped-mixer-d-200-a-240-a.html 

They have a used section.

But at least we now know its a Diosna L-shaped mixer.

Company is pioneer in mechanical mixers going back to 1885:

http://www.diosna.de/uk/bakery-systems/history.html 

I read somewhere else a while back that there is a Swiss mixer a bit like that. Very slow, mainly up down sideways. All you need to do with dough is

a) mix flour and water together evenly

b) stretch dough a little after mixing to set the gluten strands up so that as the bread expands it will maintain sufficient tension to both accomodate nice air pockets/bubbles in the crumb and hold a shape to promote better rise. So beating it like crazy with a mechanical mixer, although it does save 5-10 hours in natural dough development time by doing it all in 10 minutes or so, certainly isn't necessary, unless you absolutely gotta save that time, and also certainly lessens the flavour and aroma quotient.

I make 80-100 loaves in my micro bakery. To mix 12 loaves - my typical batch size - takes about 5 minutes by hand. Getting all the ingredients into the bowl takes longer usually. Then in terms of dough development, after an 8 hour soak (autolyze) period, I add in the starter and do a second mix for about 2-3 minutes. Then after an hour or so, do one stretch and fold for 1-2 minutes. The initial mix is a little strenuous, especially when doing 18 loaves at a time which I do though it's not ideal, but with 12 loaves it really isn't all that hard. And it takes probably exactly the same amount of time as with machine when all is said and done. I mean: how much shorter than 5 minutes does one need to get?

Again, the advantage of the machine is that, especially when using commercial yeast, your gluten is so well developed after 10 minutes of power kneading - and of course a machine can knead 100 loaves or more at a time which a human cannot, whereas home bakers have no need for this capability in the slightest - that you can use quick-rise commercial yeast to raise the bread within a couple of hours, bake it, and eat it. It's pretty nice the first few hours after baking and after that becomes dead-tasting very quickly. And of course us sourdough afficionados appreciate the considerably superior organoleptic qualities of fresh sourdough compared to fresh yeast loaves right after baking. A couple of days later, there is no comparing, imo.

Anyway.

A rant on mixing!

( This will go into my upcoming book, in a chapter entitled: 'Things Bakers do whilst waiting for a batch to come out of the oven..... Right now I have 12 German Ryes getting ready for me.. Then I'll slide in 24 Vollkorns and that will be that. 4 batches, 80+ loaves done, farmer's market tomorrow. It's a great, simple, low-key life....)