Re: Paddle Vs. Ribbon Blender
Any reason why you have not considered a drum mixer with internal lifters for this application. It works well for dry material such as concrete mixes and I have built one for spices years ago. I also have a customer who uses a large drum mixer for blending dry detergent powders.
To my mind, ribbon blenders are used when you want to mix something moist and need a shearing action to get contact between the dry & wet materials.
I cant see any difference in maintenance between paddle & ribbon blenders, they are both a through shaft with attachments on the centre pipe. (Unless there is a difference in terminology here) ■
Mix, Mix, Mix, Mix. Its Soup!!
The problem is you are putting thy cart ahead of thy horse.
You need to do a lot of work in your commercial kitchen before you do anything.
paddle mixers mix mass mix ingrediants where ribbon/whip arm mixers cut and mix it, all depends on the dry dlowability of the ingredients. what they are not telling you is it will all settle out.
And any of the heavier ingredients will simply drop to the bottom of the bowl or trough due to gravity with any of the methods in dry mixing-they did not tel you that.
You should invest in a Hobart or other brand commercial mixer "BAKERY SIZE
MIXER" to test mix batches of product!
a. to test mix batches to see how they tolerate either a paddle or ribbon arm mixing head using the nix to creat the finished product first
you need a decision tree before you do anything further involving major expenses of working capital.
How are you going to package the mixed product if mixing is the only answer
versus packaging the individual ingredients to maintain product quality for the end user?
That is the first question
The hypothesis is you want to blend product prior to packaging.
The experiment involves deciding which mixer to use.
The conclusion is the decision of which mixer if any is based on the experiment.
1. How much energy will it take to mix a 50 pound batch with a professional bakery mixer for the baseline measurement?
a. How resilient/strong are the "ACTUAL" ingredients for mixing to avoid damaging them?
b. Will it continue to be a mixed product avoiding separation of the ingredients?
c. How will the consumer use the product?
baking?
cereal?
d.Would it be better to simply portion control the ingredients to let the end user mix them for better quality if the consumer is going to mix it anyway prior to baking anyway?
this eliminates
a. settling
b. more degradation of product
c. spice compaction/fines settling
You should buy a bakery sized mixer with the all the tools to fully examine dry mixing the ingredients and avoid buying any other units until your testing lab is satisfied with the end product.
No matter the mixer you will have settling and that is unavoidable- it may be simpler just to portion package your product to guarantee purity and freshnes and simply bag the individual ingredients for packaging in one large container. ■
Paddle vs. Ribbon Blender
Hi everyone,
I posted another thread yesterday about whether a ribbon blender is best for my business. Further to that, I wanted to ask about a paddle blender.
Although all companies are recoemmending ribbon blenders, there is one guy who keeps pushing the paddle blender on me although he also has ribbon blenders. He claims the paddle blender mixes in a fraction of the time - 3 mins vs. 15-20 per batch! Also says paddle mixer needs no maintenance whatsoever, oiling or greasing of any parts where as the ribbon needs regular oiling.
I am so lost as I did'nt think there were so many details involved when trying to get a homogenous powder mixer! Any advice on ribbon vs. paddle would be much appreciated. The ingredients I am mixing together are all powder form (cocoa powder, cornstarch, salt, bicarbonate, egg white powder, flour) plus granulated crystal sugar.
Another question is while I wait for shipment for whatever I end up ordering I need to start production to launch into the market even if only limited quantities. Has anyone ever been successful to mix the powder by hand and get a 100% homogenous mix? I assume there is a way to do it with small batch sizes - 10kg maybe so I can launch into the market while waiting for my mixer to arrive!
Thanks! ■