Patent ID: 7837456

Claim:
In an apparatus for forming dough into separate parallel dough streams and cutting pieces of dough from the separate dough streams, the improvement therein of: a dough stream blocker for selectively blocking at least one of the dough streams while leaving another dough stream unblocked, comprising: an entry panel including a plurality of entry ports formed therethrough with said entry ports each configured to receive one of the dough streams, a delivery panel including a plurality of delivery ports formed therethrough, each delivery port in axial alignment with one of said entry ports for receiving one of the dough streams, a slide valve positioned between each said entry port of said entry panel and said delivery port of said delivery panel and slidable in a plane normal to the dough streams into and out of a dough blocking relationship between said entry ports and said delivery ports, and a valve operator for each slide valve for moving each slide valve in a plane perpendicular to the dough streams and into and out of dough stream blocking relationship between an entry port and a delivery port, such that one or more dough streams are blocked when other dough streams are not blocked.