Bagel shops, bakeries and grocery stores sell millions of bagels each year. Owning a bagel shop can be quite lucrative, but to start a bagel business you must first acquire the right equipment. Various types of equipment such as a revolving oven, bagel kettle and mixer are necessary for making bagels.

Creating bagel batter is the first step in bagel production. This requires an industrial type mixer with removable attachments. Several types of mixers are available, including stationary spiral mixers and tilt-over mixers. Stationary spiral mixers, which range from 120 to 560 lbs. in terms of dough capacity, work best for small- to medium-sized bakeries. Extracting bagel dough from a spiral mixer can be physically challenging. Tilt-over mixers solve this problem because they have a hydraulic lift system attached which allows you to tilt them forward while removing dough.

A divider aids in shaping and forming dough. It is most important to bagel production because it generally produces thousands of bagels every hour. The single bank bagel divider looks like a small assembly line table with a place to insert dough at one end and a holding area at the other. The divider slices and shapes the dough and rolls each finished bagel to a board at the end of the table.

A bagel kettle is a large steel pot that holds boiling water for the reactivating step of the bagel making process. Bagels are dropped in to the kettle and the boiling water stimulates the dormant yeast, making them expand. When bagels float to the top of the kettle water, they are ready for extraction with a bagel scoop. The scoop aids in getting each bagel from the boiling water and helps to drain any liquid from it.

You cannot complete the final step of baking bagels without an oven. Choose from rack style ovens or revolving ovens, both which come in stainless steel. A rack oven has several shelves for cooking several pans of bagels at one time. The front of it is usually made of glass so that you can watch the bagels as they cook. Revolving ovens rotate bagels while they are cooking to ensure even baking.