Procedure for putting flour bags in a dough mixer

Hi, Is someone would share safe procedure for putting flour in a dough mixer ?

What you would suggest to put flour bag in a horizontal dough mixer ? actually, we install 3 bags x 40 Kg on the edge of the mixer. With a sharp knife we cut the extremity of bags (long enough to empty them. We close the door a little bit higher about 45° and move the bags to empty the flour. When we remove bags, we check them if there's no missing parts of paper bags.

 When we remove bags, we check them if there's no missing parts of paper bags.

Just curiosity, If some parts of bags went inside mixer, how is the corrective procedure? Stop mixer, and start searching for paper?

Hi, Is someone would share safe procedure for putting flour in a dough mixer ?

 

What you would suggest to put flour bag in a horizontal dough mixer ?

Never worked with "horizontal dough mixer", but can we consider preventive procedure if you open the flour bag in extra plastic box, and after, add the flour from the box into the mixer? I believe more time required, increasing the time of each batch. However, even if not so pratical, could be more safely and preventive.

Never worked with "horizontal dough mixer", but can we consider preventive procedure if you open the flour bag in extra plastic box, and after, add the flour from the box into the mixer? I believe more time required, increasing the time of each batch. However, even if not so pratical, could be more safely and preventive.

It may increase the time with each batch, but what the cost be if paper gets in and you lose the batch.  Think your idea is good. 

We cut the tops off of the bags prior to bringing to the mixer. The tops are thrown away before dumping the bags.

We used to lay the bag over the mixer (for manual handling ease) and slit the bag as you describe, however we had a suitable (4 micron) sieve housed in the neck of the mixer top. Then at a set frequency (After every addition/bag/batch/1000kg depending on your process)  the sieve was inspected for FB and damage. This inspection was recorded as part of our HACCP it was a control point. The size of sieve depends on what materials you are adding to the mixer and should be optimized for grain size and process speed. I.e for brown sugar or chocolate chunk products we had a larger sieve than for flour. We also had a shaker on the neck to aid passage of the material.

Corrective action; The sieve captures any paper bag but you should also look for other items which should not be reasonable expected to be there. This will indicate problems are occurring. We once found wire in the sieve which had come from a bag of onion flake. This lead to a supplier complaint as the wire was originally on the bag of onions they had dried, flaked and supplier to us. It will also capture and FB form your equipment. Depending on what you find in the sieve you make a judgment based on risk assessment and take the relevant actions.

Sharon

We cut the tops off of the bags prior to bringing to the mixer. The tops are thrown away before dumping the bags.

As long as the bags are stripped and the tops are clean cut off, I would see not issues with this.

If we do something like that (normally we dose from a silo) we do this on a special equipment one floor above the mixer. After opening the bag, the flour is free flowing passing a sieve, going "downstairs" into the closed horizontal dough mixer - no dusting in the mixing area.

Rgds

moskito

Totally agree with Sharon in having  a mesh 

We had plastic bags with paper bags around them at a previous position and they did the same thing as you do but in a liquefier.  Put bag on edge, cut top, dump in.  I suggested putting a mesh screen just under where the milk level was so that it was "self cleaning" basically they said no... then we ended up with a plastic bag in our HTST...

I know it's a different scenario hopefully you can make some sort of parallel with what you do.

Our procedure for opening any 50 -80 lb bag of product, is to strip the outer layer of paper off prior to opening the bag. We then remove the stitching  and then the bag is dumped. Removing the outer paper layer keeps everything that was in the ware house out of the product. by removing stitching from the the bag you are less likely to have pieces of paper fall in when you dump it. When the bags are glued at booth ends we cut one end off completely.