Commercial granola runs in ten steps: scale the ingredients, mix the dry, warm the honey and oil, combine, spread on pans by weight, bake with a stir, cool, fold in the dried fruit, pack by weight, and code. Three steps make the difference. Spreading by weight, the same amount on every pan, makes every pan bake the same. Cooling fully before anything else is what makes granola crunchy; packed warm, it goes soft in the bag. And dried fruit goes in after the bake, or it burns and turns hard. Nuts make allergen control a step of its own: a nut-free product runs first, on clean equipment. In the example below, a Utah granola maker runs a baking day.
The short version
- Ten steps: scale, mix, warm, combine, spread, bake, cool, fold in, pack, code.
- Spread the same weight on every pan.
- Stir halfway through the bake for even color.
- Cool fully before packing, or it goes soft.
- Fold dried fruit in after the bake.
- Run a nut-free product first, on clean equipment.
- TaroStack records each bake as a batch with its oat and nut lots. More below.
The ten steps
| Step | What happens | What to record |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Scale | Oats, nuts, seeds and salt weighed, with lots | Weights, lots |
| 2. Mix | Dry ingredients mixed | Time |
| 3. Warm | Honey, oil and vanilla warmed together | Temperature |
| 4. Combine | Wet poured over dry, mixed to coat | Time |
| 5. Spread | Weighed onto lined pans | Weight per pan |
| 6. Bake | Baked, stirred halfway | Oven temperature, time |
| 7. Cool | Cooled on the pans | Time |
| 8. Fold in | Dried fruit folded in | Fruit lot, weight |
| 9. Pack | Bagged by weight | Bag weights |
| 10. Code | Lot and best-by on each bag | Lot, best-by |
Making it by the hundred pounds is in how to make granola in bulk, and keeping nuts apart in allergen control plan template.
An example: a baking day
Cache Valley Granola Co., the made-up granola maker in Logan, Utah, I use in these examples, bakes in a shared kitchen on Wednesdays:
| Step | What happened |
|---|---|
| Scale and mix | Classic first (no nuts), then maple pecan; oats lot OT-1002, pecans lot PC-0928 |
| Spread | 2.5 lb a pan, 24 pans |
| Bake | 300°F, 35 minutes, stirred at 18; two pans on the top rack darker, moved down next round |
| Cool | 45 minutes on the pans |
| Fold in | Dried cherries, lot DC-0915, into the classic |
| Pack and code | 118 bags of 12 oz, lot CV-1007, best by Jan 2027; 2 bags of crumbs for samples |
Running the classic, which has no nuts, before the pecan batch keeps pecans out of it without a full cleaning between. Every bag is checked on a scale against its 12-ounce label, and the two short bags went to samples. How long the granola keeps is in granola shelf life.
Get the run sheet
Download the granola production run sheet. Two sheets: a blank run sheet to print for each batch, with the ten steps, the check at each and its target, and spaces for the actual reading, the time and initials; and the same run filled in from the example. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The run sheet covers one day. Two flavors, four ingredient lots, and 118 bags to a co-op, markets and online orders: when a pecan lot is recalled, the trace has to run from the lot to every order.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack records each bake as a batch with its oat, nut and fruit lots, so a bag's lot leads back to its ingredients.
Bakes as batches. Each bake is a batch from its recipe, taking the oats, pecans, honey and fruit off stock with their lots.
Bags by lot. Each batch gets its lot and best-by, and records the good bags against what the recipe should make.
Where it went. Each order records the lot it got, so one recall report runs from a pecan lot to every customer.
| The job | Clipboard | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Which pecans went into a batch | A note on the clipboard | Batches by lot |
| Bags made against the recipe | Counted at the end | Yield on the batch |
| Who got a lot | Order history | One recall report |
Recipes, batches, lots and recalls are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.