An industrial mixer with a highly curved spiral arm that mimics kneading by hand makes the ideal dough for pizza making. That's according to new research from the Technical University of Munich in Germany, as reported by Physics World.
The scientists used a 3D simulation of dough mixed in an industrial spiral mixer to demonstrate that the radial mixing techniques employed by a spiral mixer work better than vertical mixing to produce a well-aerated final product with good elasticity.
As you're probably well aware, pizza dough must be kneaded for just the right amount of time, and in a particular way, to produce the right texture. Overknead your dough and you'll wind up with a dense and tight product that won't rise, leaving you with a dull, lifeless crust. Underkneading is just as bad, as it reduces the ability of the dough to retain air bubbles, producing an equally as unexciting result.
It's All In The Mix
The 3D simulations get pretty technical, so if you're looking for a thorough analysis click here to read the article over at Physics World, but briefly here's a few things the team noticed about the processes occurring inside the dough and on its surface when it was processed in a spiral mixer.
One takeaway is the way a spiral mixing arm forces air into the dough as it mixes in much the same way it would be incorporated if kneading the dough by hand. Another interesting observation was the way in which the elasticity of the dough enables it to 'migrate' through the bowl towards the rotating rod before climbing up it.
The result of these and other behaviours is a perfectly mixed and kneaded dough that's ready to be flattened out, topped and baked into the ideal pizza.
Radial Mixing Wins Out
According to lead researcher Natalie Germann the simulations "showed that vertical mixing isn’t as good as the radial mixing in the spiral kneader we considered in our work." So if you knead to mix a lot of dough, your best option is a spiral dough mixer.
