My Donut Business.com

As promised, here are the answers to my questions sent to Lil Orbits.

Thanks for your interest in Lil Orbits - here are the answers to your questions -

1) The donut shortening is good for about 40+ hours of cooking time -
You will know when it is time to change it out - it starts a clear dark amber color and as you cook it will become darker - more opaque and brown. It will start to smoke and you may see a film on the top of the shortening - then it is time to change -

The temp. has to be 375 degrees - our machine controls the temp. the best that I know of - our shortenings - cube and liquid are vegetable shortening and blended to work well with our donut mix. Our mix and shortenings are Kosher Certified.

2) Water can effect the taste of the donuts - some water in communities are fine - some have a smell or taste that is poor. Some people have gone to bottled water so that no matter where they are the donuts taste the same. I would not used distilled -

3) We recommend that you allow the mix to set for 10 minutes - first batch of the day to set in the hopper so that it can get down around the cutter and any air bubbles will be gone. The batter in the hopper is good for a few hours but I recommend that you use it sooner than that. It does thicken a little but the cutter in the hopper handles it.

I believe that the temp of the donut fry and it's age have more to do with the taste of the donuts - 350 degrees, does not cook the outside to a crisp and allows too much fry to soak in. 400 degrees cooks the outside too fast and in order to get the middle of the donut cooked the outside gets too dark -

More questions - just ask -

Rob