RHEON Bread Lines and Stress Free Technology

What Does RHEON Make Besides Encrusting Machines?

Many people only know RHEON for its encrusting machines, but its other main line is bread-making equipment: automatic lines for sandwich bread, dinner rolls, French bread, croissants, and Danish pastry, as well as standalone dividers, rounders, and sheeters. It also makes sandwich cookie machines, cream puff depositors, pizza sheeters, steamers, and more.

What Is Stress Free?

The hardest part of making laminated products is sheeting dough and fat out layer by layer without crushing the layers. According to RHEON's official company history, in 1974 founder Torahiko Hayashi developed the dough sheeting device "Stress Free Stretcher," which the company describes as forming dough with more delicate pressure than human hands, and the company ranks this sheeting technology alongside its encrusting technology as its two great innovations.

The core idea of "Stress Free" is: do not apply unnecessary force to the dough. When dough is overly squeezed and pulled, the gluten network is damaged, and the baked product has low volume and a coarse crumb. In its description of the VM system, RHEON's website says that forming with the Stress Free system does not apply unreasonable force to the dough, so there is no need to add chemical additives to help the dough recover, and raisins and nuts mixed into the dough are not crushed. This is the manufacturer's claim; actual results still need to be verified for each recipe and process.

This idea is consistent with the feeding design of encrusting machines; see Feeding Mechanisms and Rheology and Encrusting.

Development of the Main Lines

According to the official company history:

• 1975, MM line: An automatic pastry production line equipped with the Stress Free Stretcher, drawing inquiries from pastry makers across Europe.
• 1979, Orange Bakery: A model factory established in the United States, which the company says drove the American croissant boom of the 1980s.
• 1988: Orange Bakery's Charlotte plant began researching "frozen after proofing" bread, which the company says is only possible with a forming line that does not damage the dough.
• 1996, Stress Free V4 bread line: Centered on the V4 dough feeder, which continuously extrudes dough without damaging the gluten; it was later also used for automatic forming of European-style breads.
• 1999, VM system: The V4 feeder combined with weigh-dividing and dough-rolling forming, eliminating the need for intermediate proofing.
• 2019, VM300: Up to 300 kg/hour, with dividing weights of 20–460 g.
• 2023, HM pastry line: Pies, Danish pastries, and croissants can be produced on the same line, with enhanced quality, safety, and hygiene, and IoT integration.

How Croissant and Danish Lines Work

Taking the V4 pastry line and HM pastry line on the Japanese website as examples, the general process is:

1. Feeding: The V4 dough feeder extrudes a wide dough sheet suited to the product.
2. Roll-in: Fat is laid on the dough sheet and enclosed.
3. Sheeting and folding: Multi-stage sheeters gradually thin and fold the dough sheet, building up layers.
4. Forming: Cut into triangles and rolled into croissants, or cut into squares and filled to make Danish pastries.
5. Panning: Placed onto baking trays and sent on to proofing and baking downstream.

Sandwich bread lines work differently: the V4 feeder extrudes a dough band of fixed width and thickness, which passes through cross rollers and a multifunction sheeter to adjust its thickness (the company says this also stretches, slaps the dough to increase tension, and degasses it). The band is then slit into multiple rows and rolled up, cut to a set weight with a weighing guillotine, and finally placed automatically into bread pans.

Standalone Machines for Bakeries

Not every bakery needs a whole line. RHEON also makes standalone machines:

• EZ divider: Divides dough by set weight (20–350 g) or fixed length, up to 2,400 pieces/hour.
• VR line: Weigh-dividing plus rounding; the single-row VR250 makes up to 2,000 pieces/hour, and the VR500, which handles both single and double rows, up to 4,000 pieces/hour.
• Compact FN: An encrusting system for red bean buns and curry buns, up to 1,200 pieces/hour at 50–200 g.

Dong-Yih's Machines

Dong-Yih Machinery manufactures models in Tainan including the DY-201 Automatic Steamed Bun and Mantou Machine and the DY-528MS/DY-528M dividing machines. To find out whether they suit your product, call us at 06-257-4644 or leave a message on our Contact page.

FAQ

Q: What does RHEON make besides encrusting machines?
A: Mainly bread-making equipment, including automatic lines for sandwich bread, French bread, croissants, and Danish pastry, and standalone dividers, rounders, and sheeters, as well as sandwich cookie machines, depositors, steamers, and more.

Q: What is Stress Free?
A: A forming philosophy and technology RHEON has developed since 1974, using gentle sheeting and feeding that avoid applying unnecessary force to the dough, preserving the gluten structure as much as possible.

Q: Does RHEON make croissant and Danish pastry lines?
A: Yes, developing from the MM line of 1975 to today's V4 pastry line and the HM pastry line announced in 2023.

Q: Does RHEON have equipment suitable for small bakeries?
A: Yes, standalone machines or compact lines such as the EZ divider, VR line, and Compact FN, which can be chosen according to output.