Cheez-It Crackers Measure One Inch Wide, and Are Twenty-Four Hours in the Making

Factories turn out billions of these small orange Cheez-It squares every year, yet few people realize the full timeline behind each one. The entire journey from raw ingredients to finished cracker stretches across a full day because of one deliberate pause built into the system.

The mixing procedure begins with a large machine combining enriched flour, vegetable oil, and salt. Ice water immediately cools everything down, keeping the dough at the proper temperature in the presence of those spinning blades. There is also a slurry of paprika, water, salt, and sugar, which gives the crackers their distinctive color and ensures that it distributes uniformly and does not form clumps. Large blocks of cheddar and skim-milk cheese are now fed through a machine that splits them into strands before folding them back into the main batch of dough. It just takes 14 minutes of continuous mixing to produce a smooth end product that is ready for the next phase.

The dough is then placed in a highly controlled environment for 24 hours, which is an important period of rest. All of the mixing has stretched and compacted the dough’s gluten, which need time to relax and become controllable. Meanwhile, the moisture is equally distributed throughout the batch, ensuring that it performs consistently. The dough produces a skin on the outside, which is beneficial since it keeps the crackers from becoming too sticky. If you leave it for less than 24 hours, the dough begins to battle the rollers as it becomes sticky and then bakes into flat, pale crackers that lack the desired snap and flavor.

When the dough has rested long enough, the rollers come out to press it into thin sheets. These sheets are then layered and fed through heavier rollers to achieve the desired thinness. Finally, the cutting rollers are used to give the crackers their distinctive square shape and a single small hole in the center. Now that central hole is the key to the entire flavor, because when the crackers are baking, the moisture inside the dough turns to steam, and that hole allows the pressure escape, keeping the crackers flat and crisp rather than all puffed up like a pillow.

A sprinkling of salt on top shortly before baking completes the preparatory phase. The conveyor belt then transports the sheets on a long journey inside the oven, where they are roasted to roughly 700F in multiple zones. 3.5 minutes later, the baked sheets emerge, still attached at the edges. In a matter of seconds, a high-speed vibration separates them all into individual crackers, which are then packaged and distributed to retailers across the country.
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