An often inquired about topic in the bakery world is the difference between a dough press and a dough sheeter. Although these two machines sound similar, each serves a unique purpose in the world of dough prep. As always, we are here to guide you and explain the differences between a dough press and a dough sheeter, so that you can make the right decision when the time comes.

Dough Press

A dough press is a mostly manual-operated machine that is designed to shape a portion of dough rounds into flat round pieces of dough between two pressing plates. For example, you could find these used for shaping tortillas as well as pizza and pie crusts. Now some of you reading this in New York may be thinking, “Whoa Whoa Whoa, you don’t use a dough press to make pizza.” This is true, at least not when making a New York-style pie, but pizza chains and pizza shops in the mid-west will use a press to shape their bar-style pies.

Dough presses also come in a few different styles, like hot press and cold press. Hot dough presses are used for specific products. The heated plates of the press form a skin on the dough that helps create a cracker-like product when baked. Although a simple and efficient way to flatten dough, it is not ideal for most other types of products and is not exactly the preferred method of flattening dough for bakers.

Dough Sheeter

Dough sheeters are mechanical machines that push the dough through two rollers that flatten and stretch the dough into sheets as it passes through. The major benefit of a dough sheeter is the ability to sheet dough at variable thicknesses. Dough sheeters also allow bakers to work in bulk and flatten out a larger quantity of dough than a dough press can allow.

The versatility of dough sheeters can be found in their ability to sheet a variety of different doughs such as cookie doughs, pie crusts, bread doughs and laminated doughs for croissants and pastries. Dough sheeters are also incredible savers of time and labor. These fully automated machines can take the tedious and lengthy process of sheeting and laminating dough and simplify the entire process.

Having the right bakery equipment is crucial. Being able to streamline processes and guarantee consistency and quality is a huge relief for bakers. While dough presses excel at portioning and shaping, dough sheeters allow you to control thickness and sheet in large quantities. When choosing between the two you need to ask yourself, what products do I intend to make and how much of that product do I need to product to keep up with demand? We take pride in being able to educate our customers and help build successful bakeries alongside them. After all, we have been doing it for over 45 years and counting.