The right mixer for your commercial kitchen can significantly improve your overall blending efficiency. Choosing the best one starts with knowing what types of products you’ll be making and how big your batch sizes are. Look beyond the advertised horsepower. There are plenty of mixer options that can meet your specific mixing needs.
Safety Features
Mixing and blending equipment are vital in transforming raw materials into finished products that are safe for consumption. Unfortunately, these machines are also responsible for many foodborne illnesses. Because sanitation is a top concern for most processing facilities, mixers, and blenders are being updated for improved sanitary design. This includes having rounded edges and moisture-resistant seals to reduce the need for specialty brushes or tools to clean the nooks and crannies of the machine. Additionally, power consumption and maintenance requirements should be considered when choosing an industrial mixer for food blending. A low-power mixer with minimal maintenance can save you time and money in the long run.
Adjustable Speeds
The rotation speed of your industrial mixer is critical in ensuring that your recipe is mixed properly. Powders with friable ingredients or large particle size differences will mix better with a lower rotation speed to reduce the shear and centrifugal forces that can damage free-flowing materials or segregate them during blending.
You can also use the rotation speed to match your mixing needs with the time required to load, pack, and clean your equipment. This can reduce your blending cycle times, enabling you to run additional shifts or increase your capacity. This can also make it easier to achieve consistent, repeatable recipe blends.
Tilting Capabilities
Mixers and blenders can be configured to tilt in various directions. This can benefit various applications, including blending food items and stabilizing them with chemical stabilizers. Tilting capabilities also allow for easier cleaning of the mixer.
Changing ingredients on fixed mixers takes time and may cause cross-contamination between mixing recipes. In-bin blending allows you to mix and package a recipe without an operator switching between mixers, reducing production downtime and saving materials and energy.
Choosing a blender with a hinged access door makes cleaning and inspecting for leaks or clogs easy. It also allows you to open the mixer without disrupting the process.
Tilting Heads
A good industrial mixer should come with a powerful motor. Understanding how much power a mixer has and how it avoids overheating can help you make the best choice. The type of materials you plan to mix also plays a crucial role in choosing the right mixer. Some industrial food mixers are designed for certain materials, while others can handle various materials. A high mixing capacity is important because it allows you to produce more product in a shorter period. In addition, it can reduce the downtime required to change ingredients and clean the equipment. You can also choose a mixer that has a hinged access, making it easier to clean and inspect.
Bowl Scrapers
The best industrial mixers have bowl scrapers that slide around the agitator shaft to scrape ingredients off the side of the bowl as it spins. They save time by eliminating the need to stop and manually scrape while the machine runs. A bowl scraper is particularly useful for bakery applications in mixing wet, sticky doughs. It can be used to wiggle risen bread dough out of the bowl without deflating it or to smooth batter, icing, and other wet foods over surfaces and into decorating bags.
You may require a certain industrial mixer or blender, depending on your food processing needs. Understanding the differences between different types of equipment, like v-cone mixers, batch mixers, and fluidizing paddle mixers, can help you decide what features to look for in your mixer or blender.
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