Commercial hummus runs in eight steps: soak the chickpeas, cook them, weigh the batch, blend, cool it fast, fill the tubs by weight, date them, and keep them cold. Hummus is a refrigerated food with no kill step after blending, so two things carry its safety: cooling, quickly through the temperatures where bacteria grow, and a clean kitchen, since anything the hummus touches after the cook can contaminate it. The use-by date comes from the maker's shelf life study, and the cold chain from the cooler to the grocer's case keeps it true. In the example below, a Dearborn hummus maker runs a production day.
The short version
- Eight steps: soak, cook, weigh, blend, cool, fill, date, store cold.
- Cook dried chickpeas until soft; keep some cooking liquid.
- Weigh every ingredient for the batch.
- Cool fast in shallow pans, and record it.
- Clean everything the hummus touches after the cook.
- Date every tub from your shelf life study; keep it cold.
- TaroStack records each batch with its chickpea and tahini lots. More below.
The eight steps
| Step | What happens | What to record |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Soak | Dried chickpeas soaked overnight, refrigerated | Chickpea lot, start time |
| 2. Cook | Cooked in the steam kettle until soft | Time |
| 3. Weigh | Chickpeas, tahini, lemon, oil, garlic, salt by weight | Weights, tahini lot |
| 4. Blend | In the vertical cutter mixer to texture | Time |
| 5. Cool | Spread in shallow pans in the walk-in | Temperatures and times |
| 6. Fill | Tubs filled by weight, lidded | Tub weights |
| 7. Date | Lot and use-by on each tub | Lot, use-by |
| 8. Store cold | Into the cooler until delivery | Cooler temperature |
Making it by the hundred pounds is in how to make hummus in bulk, and the 10-day date in hummus shelf life.
An example: a production day
Cedar and Lemon Hummus, the made-up hummus maker in Dearborn, Michigan, I use in these examples, makes hummus on Mondays and Thursdays in a shared kitchen. One Monday:
| Step | What happened |
|---|---|
| Soak and cook | Chickpeas lot CP-0928, soaked Sunday night, cooked 75 minutes |
| Weigh and blend | 6 batches of 50 lb; tahini lot TH-0919 |
| Cool | Shallow pans in the walk-in; batch 6 at 52°F at the 4-hour check, moved to more pans, 40°F at 5 hours |
| Fill | 470 tubs at 10 oz, every tenth weighed |
| Date | Lot CL-1005, use by Oct 15 |
| Store cold | Cooler at 36°F until the Tuesday route |
Batch 6 went into one deep pan when the shallow ones ran out and was cooling too slowly at the 4-hour check; spreading it out brought it to 40°F within the plan. That check, and what was done, went on the cooling record, kept with the run sheet. How cooling is logged is in cooling log template.
Get the run sheet
Download the hummus production run sheet. Two sheets: a blank run sheet to print for each batch, with the eight 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. Three flavors, two tahini pails, 470 tubs with a 10-day date to eight grocers: when a tahini lot is recalled, or a grocer asks about one tub, the trace has to run through the batch to every store.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack records each batch with its chickpea and tahini lots, so a tub's lot leads back to its batch.
Batches by lot. Each batch takes the chickpeas, tahini and lemons off stock with their lots.
Tubs by lot and date. Each batch gets its lot and use-by, and orders take the oldest first.
Where it went. Each grocer's order records the lot it got, so one recall report runs from a tahini lot to every store.
| The job | Clipboard | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Which tahini went into a batch | A note on the clipboard | Batches by lot |
| Which tubs go out first | Dates on tape | First-expired-first-out |
| Which grocers got a lot | Invoices | 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.