Just as these aren't conventional wholesale formulas, neither are their processing methods. "Make your equipment work with my recipes," that's what Ms. Schubert-Barnes told the bakery equipment suppliers.
Sister Schubert's Homemade Rolls' expansion project started in January 1998, with underwriting in place during March 1998. The plant continued to operate during this period. The new production line had to be complete before the existing makeup line could be moved. Everything was done by January 1999.
Burch Engineering, Birmingham, Ala., designed and laid-out the building so that its back wall, set on the mid-point of die property, could become the site's expansion wall. It did. The building doubled in size.
Ms. Schubert-Barnes admitted that her perfectionist streak lengthened startup commissioning. "I had to have things absolutely right before the next step," she said. "There was a lot of sweat and some tears, but the results are worth every extra minute we took. All the hard work paid off. I couldn't be more pleased with the manufacturers involved. They helped us incorporate new equipment and new technology that allowed us to make rolls the way I want them made."
WARM DOUGHS
In a four-hour production cycle, Sister Schubert's Homemade Rolls turns raw ingredients into finished products, iced, bagged and ready for the freezer. The plant operates two shifts with a staff of 180 people. To build stock ahead of the holidays, the company's busiest sales period, additional workers are brought in during September and October for a weekend shift.
Raw materials, including bagged bakers enriched flour supplied by Sysco along with other ingredients, are received at one side of the plant, with finished frozen goods leaving through four refrigerated docks at the opposite end.
Operators empty the flour bags into a bag dump station that supplies the Abtek automated bulk flour system. Water is also delivered automatically at pre-set temperatures, but all other ingredients are manually batched.
Two Kemper paddle-style vertical mixers produce doughs in medium-size batches. Bowls are released onto carts, and operators push them to the Kemper hoists on each of the two parallel Moline makeup lines.
Doughs come out of the mixer at 90°F (32'C), warm and sticky, just as they do at home. "The dough is very soft and very sticky," Ms. Schubert-Barnes said, "not like a bread dough at all. The less you handle my dough, the better it is."
Because the dough is so tender, it requires three separate reduction stages. The first stage on the Moline line is a cross-roller section, which duplicates the transverse sheeting stretching action of manual rolling pins. Two reduction rollers follow.
Depending on product requirements, a series of flour dusters, topping shakers, filling spreaders and curling rolls can be engaged to turn the thin sheet of dough into a long, thick log.
After sheeting, the dough passes through a specially programmed computerized guillotine cutter. It is computer-timed to cut five minutely different sizes. The sizes vary at random to duplicate hand cutting, but when 16 roll pieces are placed in a pan, the total weight reaches the proper target setting.
Each makeup line employs 18 to 20 operators filling foil tins by hand, an operation deemed essential to product quality at Sister Schubert's Homemade Rolls. This manual operation gives every pan a slightly different appearance that communicates "hand-made" to consumers.
Filled pans leave the makeup lines by traveling along a plastic link conveyor. The two lanes from each makeup line converge as they head toward proofing. Each pan receives a topping of melted 100% butter, applied by a Burford spray dispenser. The butter topping creates a tender, buttery crust.
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The plant's new proofer, an IJ White Accu-Proof system, puts two spiral conveyors to work. Sister Schubert's Homemade Rolls employs a dry proof, typical of home baking practice. The pans of rolls enter the chamber low, travel up one spiral conveyor, cross over and descend the second spiral before exiting the proofer
