Manufacturing Process of Biscuits

Biscuit is one of the most popular snacks used all over the world and liked by people of all age groups. The specialty about biscuits is that they can be taken with different things like tea, coffee, milk, etc. Let's know about the manufacturing processes involved in the production of biscuits. The manufacturing process consists of the following steps:

MIXING
In this process all ingredients like flour, fat, sugar etc., are put together in the right proportion for dough formation. The ingredients are fed into the mixers, where they are mixed properly to prepare the dough. Here the dough temperature and mixing time play an important role in the manufacturing of biscuits. Normally mixing time is between 10- 15 min but it usually depends upon flour characteristics. It is performed in two or three stages with different mixing speed.

MOULDING
Mixing is followed by moulding, in which the dough is laminated into sheets and is passed down to gauge rollers and appropriate sheet thickness is achieved for cutting. It is here that biscuits are given a variety of shapes and sizes using cutter or moulder. The speed of the moulder or the cutter depends on the variety of the biscuit. Use of moulder or cutter depends on the type of the dough where moulder is used for short dough type of biscuit and cutters are used for sheet variety or hard dough.

BAKING
It is the third stage in biscuit making process, where the moulded biscuits are put into the baking oven on required temperatures. There are various baking options with different kinds of ovens available like direct fired, indirect fired and hybrid ovens, which can be used keeping in mind the desired temperatures, the convenience and cost. Various methods of heating like conduction , convection and radiation are used in the ovens. These ovens also have dampers to control moisture inside the oven section. Generally, the ovens are classified as 4 zone , 5 zone or 6zone ovens where length varies from 40 mtr to 80 mtrs . Biscuits are carried on wire mesh band in oven.

COOLING
After baking biscuits, they are passed on to cooling conveyors for natural cooling prior to packing. These conveyors are generally 300 - 400 ft. and can be of two or 3 deck type as per space availability. In the conveyors, the temperature is brought down to room temperature. Natural cooling is preferred to forced cooling as it maintains the texture quality of biscuit.

PACKING
After cooling, the biscuits are stacked and fed into packing machine. These biscuits can be availed in different packaging materials in different packs like slug packs, pouch pack or family packs. These packs are then put into secondary packings like cartons for transporting to the retailers. Packing material that are used for used for biscuit packaging are BOPP ,Laminates ( pearlised or metallised ), pouches.