There’s nothing more important to a baker than perfect dough texture. Mixing and kneading dough by hand for a bakery or food business can be tiring. It can also limit your growth. The secret to a perfect dough are spiral mixers.

Mixers can make any baker’s life easier, but when it comes to serious dough work, nothing beats a spiral mixer. While only the hook or attachment on most mixers spins, a spiral mixer moves both the bowl and the hook. The hook kneads while the bowl rotates, resulting in smoother, more consistent dough.

A spiral mixer can help any bakery grow while retaining consistency and reducing labor needs and worker fatigue. In this guide, we will explain why a spiral mixer is a baker's best friend. We will cover how they work and how to choose the right model for your business.

spiral mixer

What Is A Spiral Mixer?

A spiral mixer is easy to understand. In traditional mixers, only the attachment moves. But in a spiral mixer, both the dough hook and the bowl spin.

When both the spiral arm and bowl move, the ingredients blend properly and the gluten develops optimally. This is important for yeast recipes like bread, pizza dough, and rolls. These recipes need strong gluten development.

When water mixes with flour, it creates gluten. Kneading strengthens that gluten by stretching and linking the proteins, giving dough its structure and chew. A spiral mixer ensures that water is evenly mixed and that gluten is evenly kneaded throughout the dough.

Why Bakeries Pick Spiral Mixers

Behind the scenes of nearly any bakery or food business that takes dough seriously—from established bakeshops to up-and-coming pizza spots—you’ll usually find a mixer at work.

As opposed to a planetary mixer (think what most home bakers might have), where the only thing moving is the attachment piece, a spiral mixer’s dynamic movement is designed for volume and consistency.

Because the dual movement of a spiral mixer is so efficient, it can knead dough quickly without overheating it, which can kill yeast and impede a bread’s ability to rise and create air pockets, which give the bread structure.

Likewise, the dual movement of the hook and bowl mimics hand kneading, which is gentle on your dough and helps prevent gluten bonds from ripping and overworking.

Spiral mixers, like the kind we make at Empire, are designed for large batches and high volume. We make models that can handle anything from 40 pounds of dough to 600+ pounds, and that can handle robust doughs like rye and whole wheat bread to more delicate ones like dinner rolls.

How To Choose A Spiral Mixer

Choosing a spiral mixer is an investment in your business’s growth and commitment to consistency, but how do you determine what kind of spiral mixer works for your bakery?

Here are some features to consider:

  • Capacity: Upgrading to a spiral mixer doesn’t matter if it can’t meet your capacity needs. Figure out roughly how much dough you make in a day, and try to find a model that can meet those needs, plus something that can handle growth for the future.  
  • Speed control: Some mixers, like Empire’s IRIS Spiral Mixer, have different speed options, giving you more control over dough mixing and development.
  • Bowl Type: Some models have a stationary bowl, while others have a removable one. Some models also have a cage around the bowl for safety reasons and to prevent flour and dough bits from flying out.
  • Construction: Look for stainless steel models, which are easy to clean and won’t rust or wear over time.

Why A Spiral Mixer Is A Baker’s Best Friend

A spiral mixer is purpose-built for dough: it mixes more evenly, keeps dough cool, and produces superior texture compared to other mixers.

If you’re ready to upgrade your bakery setup, check out Empire’s spiral mixers and find the model that meets your production needs.